TEN THOUSAND WAVES - ISAAC JULIEN SOLO EXHIBITION (solo)

OVERVIEW

EXHIBITION SYNOPSIS

ShanghART will bring the 9-screen video installation work by England based artist Isaac Julien: Ten Thousand Waves in May. The opening on 20 May will be the premiere in China, just a few days after the world premiere of Ten Thousand Waves at the Sydney Biennale.

Conceived and made over three years, TEN THOUSAND WAVES sees Julien collaborating with some of China’s leading artistic voices, including: the legendary siren of Chinese cinema Maggie Cheung; rising star of Chinese film Zhao Tao; poet Wang Ping; master calligrapher Gong Fagen; artist Yang Fudong; acclaimed cinematographer Zhao Xiaoshi; and a 100-strong Chinese cast and crew. The film’s original musical score is by fellow East Londoner Jah Wobble and The Chinese Dub Orchestra and contemporary classical composer Maria de Alvear.

Filmed on location in the ravishing and remote Guangxi province and at the famous Shanghai Film Studios and various sites around Shanghai, TEN THOUSAND WAVES combines fact, fiction and film essay genres against a background of Chinese history, legend and landscape to create a poetic meditation on global human migrations. Through formal experimentation and a series of unique collaborations, Julien seeks to engage with Chinese culture through contemporary events, ancient myths and artistic practice.

The original inspiration for TEN THOUSAND WAVES was the Morecambe Bay tragedy of 2004, in which 23 Chinese cockle-pickers died. In response to this event, Julien commissioned the poet Wang Ping to write Small Boats, a poem that is recited in the work. In the successive years, Julien has spent time in China slowly coming to understand the country and its people and developing the relationships that have enabled him to undertake this rich and multifaceted work.

Through conversations with academics, experts and artists both in China and the UK, Julien uncovered a poetically symbolic body of material which he has used to create a work that explores modern and traditional Chinese values and superstitions. These are encapsulated in a fable about the goddess Mazu (played by Maggie Cheung) that comes from Fujian Province, from where the Morecambe Bay cocklepickers originated. The Story of Yishan Island tells the tale of 16th Century fishermen lost and in danger at sea. At the heart of the legend is the goddess figure who leads the fishermen to safety. Using this fable as a starting point Julien deftly draws on this story and the poignant connection between it and the 21st Century tragedy of Chinese migrants who died struggling to survive in the North of England.

Following ideas surrounding death, spiritual displacement, and the uniquely Chinese connection with “ghosts” or “lost souls”, the film links the Shanghai of the past and present, symbolising the Chinese transition towards modernity, aspiration and affluence. Mirroring the goddess of the fable, a ghostly protagonist (Zhao Tao) leads us through the world of Shanghai cinema via the Shanghai Film Studio, to a restaging by Julien of scenes from the classic Chinese film THE GODDESS (1934), and finally to the streets of Modern and Old Shanghai. Isaac Julien is as equally acclaimed for his fluent, arresting films as his vibrant and inventive gallery installations. TEN THOUSAND WAVES is his most ambitious project to date with the nine-screen installation forming a dynamic architectural structure through which the viewer navigates the multiple narratives. Julien deploys the visual and aural textures of the film to elicit a visceral response from the viewer, submerging them in the world of his making.

TEN THOUSAND WAVES - TOUR INFORMATION WORLD

PREMIERE | Sydney Biennale, Cockatoo Island, 12 May – 1 August 2010 For the work’s world premiere at the Sydney Biennale in May 2010, TEN THOUSAND WAVES will be installed on Cockatoo Island – the largest island in Sydney Harbour and Australia’s most unusual urban park as a former prison and shipyard.

CHINESE PREMIERE | ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai, opening 20 May 2010

TEN THOUSAND WAVES will show in Shanghai to coincide with the Shanghai Expo.

UK PREMIERE | Hayward Gallery, London, 13 October 2010 – 9 January 2011