‘Vacanza 度假’ project in Toffia, Italy

‘Vacanza’ meaning holiday or vacation in English was an exhibition took place in Toffia's art festival between 13th and 17th August 2008. The result of the collaboration between Ruobing Wang and members of '33 Officina Creativa' from Toffia brought together six artists of Chinese descend to explore a light-hearted theme based on holiday. When translated into Chinese, the title for the exhibition is ‘度假’ (du jia).

Artists took part were Yak Beow Seah, Poh Mui Tan, Thau Yin Lee (Jeffrey), Hua Kuan Sai, the curator Ruo Bing Wang, myself and with voluntary help from my wife Cheng Heong Wong. We are a group of Chinese artists came from China, Malaysia and Singapore respectively and studied fine art in the UK.

A view of Toffia. Image by Ruobing

With a population of approximately 1000, Toffia is a village with Medieval and Roman history. On describing Toffia, the curator Ruobing Wang said, “Searching through Internet, it is not difficult to find Toffia described as a charming ancient medieval village, offering tourists not only incredible visual pleasure such as the untouched landscape of rolling hills, olive trees and wine groves, but also spoiling them with locally produced healthy vegetables, oil and delicious Italian cuisine. Only 30 miles north of Rome, Toffia was built on a wedge-shaped spur of rock with an obvious defensive purpose during the medieval period. The extraordinary position at the hilltop also bestows on Toffia a contemporary value. Today Toffia has less purpose as a place of residency than a suburban holiday resort supplying cultural and natural needs for the city dwellers nearby. Nor is this an isolated case: there are many such villages nearby experiencing similar circumstances, for example Farfa and Fara in Sabina. And this is precisely the reason why the appearance of Toffia struck us collectively a temptingly like a holiday, even though we come from various social and political backgrounds.”

A street scene of Toffia. Image by C. B. Pok

Wang sees ‘Vacanza’ as “an experimental and controversial attempt in fusing the two rich and enduring civilizations of Chinese and Medieval European culture. Art by Chinese artists has gathered great momentum in recent years, appearing throughout the international art scene since the 1990s, most frequently in the sophisticated big cities such as Roma, Berlin, London and New York. In this sense, an exhibition of Chinese artists in the remote medieval village of Toffia is worthy of exploration… ‘Holiday [Vacanza exhibition]’, therefore, brings with it a multinational, multicultural and yet globalized context to Toffia’s local residents, and, of course, the large number of summer holiday tourists too.”

Entrance to the gallery and publicity poster. Image by Ruobing

Another publicity material. Image by Ruobing

My wife and I arrived late in Toffia on 15th August (the exhibition started on 13th August) due to a pre-booked holiday to Istanbul before I was informed about the project. Unfortunately, we also arrived in Toffia with food poisoning on us; and I recovered a few days after I came back to London.

However, with the help of the rest of the artists in the group, I managed to present two pieces of work for the exhibition. ‘Free Sample’ was an eatable sculpture uses olive oil, a cooking ingredient that every Italian family uses for their cooking and at the same time a local produce in Toffia, to mix with the Chinese’s sesame oil. The mixture was then filled in small sampling bottles and displayed on a small table for the visitors to take away free for their cooking or mix with their salads.

My 'Free Sample' work. Image by C. B. Pok

A closed-up view of 'Free Sample'. Image by Sarah L'Epée

Another piece was a cooking performance with the rest of the exhibiting artists, it uses ‘fusilli’, one of the most commonly used ingredients in Italian cooking to stir fried Malaysian style. All the food in our culinary performance was served free to the visitors.

A scene from my fusilli stir-fried Malaysian style cooking performance. Image by Ruobing

A closed-up view of my cooking performance. Image by Ruobing

My works for the ‘Vacanza’ exhibition choose the most commonly used food ingredients and cooking method in both Italian and Chinese’s everyday life to engage with the gallery space and the people of Toffia. It interprets my personal experience while I am away on holiday or lived in foreign land; it is a celebration of the culture where I come from and the culture of the holiday destination. Or, in much general term, the works revolve around the notion of celebration of cultural hybridization; as well as embody a sense of connecting, exchanging, and conviviality. For 'Free Sample', the idea of work of art can be sampled free and come back for more later is ambiguos and debatable.

Mui and Seah's Curry-puff performance, Jeffery and Ruobing were helping. Image by Ruobing

(From left) Mui, Hua Kuan, Yvonne and Jeff in the 'Kui Kar Pek' or 'Love letters' making. Image by Ruobing

'Mama' is preparing a homemade pasta for the hard working volunteers and artists. Image by Ruobing

Mui and Seah's 'Hum Chim Pen' performance. Image by Ruobing

Mui's paper aeroplanes installation using papers from travel guide book. Image by Ruobing

Seah's Untitled, lemons and chopsticks installation. Image by Ruobing

Jeffery Lee and Ruobing's collaborative projection (left) and Hui Kuan's photograph interacts with an existing bell in the space. Image by Ruobing

Another of Hua Kuan's photograph installation. Image by Ruobing

Ruobing's installation using sound recorded in Toffia and old documents found in the space. Image by Ruobing

A closed-up view of Ruobing's installation. Image by Ruobing

The recipe for my stir-fried fusilli piece (suitable for vegetarian):

Ingredients one:
Oil
Garlic (Chopped)
Bean sprout
Onion (sliced)
Green and red pepper (sliced)
Carrot (sliced)

Ingredient two:
Fusilli (boiled according to the instruction on the packaging)

Ingredients three:
Dark soy sauce
Light soy sauce
Salt and white pepper
Sesame oil
Sugar
Water

Ingredient four:
Egg

Methods:
1. Heat up a wok to a right cooking temperature.
2. Pour some oil and place the garlic in the wok.
3. Put the rest of the ‘ingredients one’ in the wok and follows by ‘ingredient two’
4. Put all the ‘ingredients three’ in the wok, stir fry and well mix them for about a minute.
5. Put the egg inside the mixture; stir fry for about another 30 seconds and serve.

For further reading about the ‘Vacanza’ project please follow these links to Italian art writer and curator Emanuele Sbardella’s blog:

http://emanuelesbardella.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/vacanzaproject_toffia2008/

http://emanuelesbardella.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/progettovacanza_da-stir-a-vacanza/

http://emanuelesbardella.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/vacanzaproject_untitled/#comment-40

For information about Toffia please follow this link:

http://www.sabina.it/comuni-i/toffia-i.html

'Cutting Edge' event at the V&A Museum's Friday Late

‘Cutting Edge’ was one of the side events for the ‘China Design Now’ exhibition at the V&A Museum, the event took place on 26 June 2008 was commission by V&A and supported by French Connection.

Cutting Edge publicity material


The CD-R (Chinese Designers’ Region) group was invited to organize this event. William Hailiang Chen, one of the CD-R directors and also the curator of the event mentioned that he inspired by the mosaic floor ornament design on V&A’s flooring and relate it to traditional Chinese paper cutting. He decided to invite members of public visiting the event to pick up a pair of scissors and join the CD-R members to create a paper-cutting installation in ‘Cutting Edge’. The installation then ran along the floor of the museum like a carpet strip. At the end of the night, the visitors were also allowed to take a piece home.


Another event alongside the ‘Cutting Edge’ event was the ‘Sound Message Board’ which was organized by the CD-R members. Devised by sound artist Zhu Tiantian, the installation creates ‘live sound-scape’ in response to people’s aural messages. Members of public were invited to write their message on their textured message boards with improvised writing instruments to hear their ideas resonant.

Participant designers and artists:

Yue Bei, William Hailiang Chen, Stephanie Foy, Beidi Guo, Chloe Liu, Lei Liu, Yan Pan, Chong Boon Pok(Andrew), Kar Paik Soon, Mei Fong Tam, Tom Tong, Zhe Wang, Susu Xu, Yan Yan, Can Can Yang, Ann Xiao and Jing Zhang

About CD-R

CDR is a non-profit organisation embarked from the first meeting with Get It Louder curator Ou Ning in April 2006 and later also ‘Post Awakening’ party at William Hailiang Chen’s flat on 8th October 2006. The group has been holding a number of meetings and tried to curate a collective exhibition for almost 2 years now. For further information about CD-R please visit visit www.cdregion.com

I designed and pre-prepared a 2-D Chinese ornament pattern that has butterflies and flowers motif for the event. The design was then cut out from a piece of designated colour paper and laid on the museum floor, it was meant to be fixed in one of the boxes of the museum floor’s ornamental design. At the event, I invited members of public to have a hand on experience on paper butterflies cutting using old magazines’ papers that can be then transformed into 3-D butterfly. Their cut-outs matched my design in an evolutional manner (from monotone 2-D to colorful 3-D), and displayed on the floor up to the pillar next to my design.

Drawing for my idea

Experiments of the butterfly cutting

The cutting technique demonstration


Members of the public took part in the paper cutting

Some of the paper buttleflies displayed on the pillar

China Earthquake Charity Fundraising Exhibition

The 7.9 magnitude Earthquake that shook the China’s Szechuan province recently has taken more than 68,000 lives and injured more than 300,000 people.

Publicity image for the exhibition

Ruo Bing Wang is an artist from the Szechuan province area; and also the curator for the China Earthquake Charity Fundraising Exhibition that took place at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art on 25 and 26 June 2008. Wang said, “As an artist from the disaster-affected area, I hope to help [the victims] through the way I know best: through art."

Entrance to the exhibition

She organised the charity exhibition which was supported by 26 artists that includes herself, Chay TuckMeng, Mohamed Bushara, Juliana Amaral Leite, Richard Wentworth, Maria Glyka, Madhushree Acharya-Baskerville, Daria Martin, Vassillis Viastaras, Jim Hobbs, Emma Kwan, Carali McCall, Marie Roux, Niyi Olagunju, Aaron Marcovy, Michael James Jones and Henningham Family Press, Yvonne Kyriakides, He Weimin, Metod Blejec, Zanchary Gvirtzman, Brano Gnastalla, Hua Kuan Sai, Jeffery Lee, Poh Mui Tan, Yak Beow Seah, Bie Tu, Ler Tu and myself.

Chinese tea, cookies and T-shirt were sold to raise extra money


The exhibition which was later extended to 29 June managed to raise a total of £1,377.39. Works of art, Earthquake T-shirt, Chinese tea and cookies were sold during the exhibition and all money received went to the Red Cross Society of China.

A scene at the exhibition

Another corner of the exhibition

Richard Wentworth's photograph work (top right)

One of my cranes work: Swan Cigarette Paper Folded into Cranes, 2000

Two original prints I found in a car boot sale by an unknow artist were sold

Another original print bought in the same car boot sale was also sold