Archive sinokultur im Salon - sinokultur

On Thursday, October 24 from 7pm to 10pm sinokultur invites you to join us for our Salon with Chinese photographer and artist Nina Chen.

In her presetation Nina will talk about her life and show her newest project the video Here, Nowhere (2024). After the presentation she will talk with moderator Yunlong Song about her experience as an immigrant and photographer/artist in Switzerland.

About the video: At the end of 2017, Nina immigrated from Shanghai to canton Aargau, Switzerland. As part of the immigrant community, she herself experienced immigrant life and has become an observer of this process. Since the spring of 2022, she has invited five immigrant women to read poems in their mother tongue in order to portray the hardships and joys of their new life. She uses real and delicate film language to show the audience the private states of mind of these women from different cultural backgrounds, hoping that these ordinary individuals can gain the audience's understanding and respect.

This immigration journey, whether bitter or joyful, is an experience worth remembering. Where will these immigrant women go and will they be able to put down roots in this country? Will this be their last stop?

This project was realized with the support of sinokultur.

About the artist: Nina was born in 1980 in Hubei, China. After she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Hubei Normal University in 2003, she worked as an art teacher, graphic designer and art director. Since 2009, she was a freelance photographer and artist, and founded Nina Chen Photography Studio and lived and worked in Shanghai. She moved to Switzerland in 2017 and is the resident photographer at the Children’s Hospital in Zurich.

Following the presentation, the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions. The artist and the audience can discuss openly and critically. A small Apéro will round off the evening.

This talk will be held in English.

More info about the artist: https://www.ninachen.photos

sinokultur would like to invite you to our Salon with the Italian multimedia and performance artist, social activist, researcher, writer and educator Alessandro Rolandi on Friday, August 30 at 6.30 pm.

The artist will talk to us about his ongoing project @socialsensibility (Art for Workers) which he founded in 2010 in Beijing. He is also the director of the Social Sensibility R&D Department at Bernard Controls Industries in Beijing (2010-ongoing) and Paris/Gonesse (2016-ongoing) and a founding partner of the Social Sensibility Research Institute (SoSense).

The artist's work focuses on social intervention and relational dynamics to expand the notion of art practice beyond existing structures, spaces and hierarchies, engaging with reality through strategic decentralized autonomous practices. 

Alessandro Rolandi was living and working in Beijing from 2002 to 2020. The project SOCIAL SENSIBILITY was developed by individuals, workers, managers, employees of Bernard Controls China and France with the assistance of the artists of the Social Sensibility R&D Departments. Once realized the project is exhibited in the factories and outside, in art galleries, museums and institutions that show interest.

Alessandro was born in Pavia on April 18, 1971. He is based in Bern, Switzerland and travels to Beijing, and Paris regularly to supervise the project. Currently he is studying an MA in Global Media and Digital Culture at SOAS, London. 

Following the presentation, the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions. The artist and the audience can discuss openly and critically. A tasty aperitif will round off the evening.

The event is moderated by Yunlong Song. This talk will be held in English.

More info about the artist: https://alessandrorolandi.org

On Thursday, March 14 at 18.30 the Swiss art advisor Thomas Stauffer will talk about contemporary Chinese artists and their relationship with the international art market: Where does the international art market stand today: trends, tendencies? His relation to the Chinese art market. Brief historical summary and the development of the Chinese art market in the last 25-30 years. Examples of three Chinese artists and the analysis of their success.

Thomas Stauffer, Partner at leading private art dealership and art advisory firm Gerber & Stauffer Fine Arts, has been a passionate collector of art since his teenage years. With a keen eye for anticipating lasting market developments in 20th and 21st century art and an excellent network of contacts worldwide, Stauffer has made a name for himself internationally for sourcing important artworks off-market from within private collections.

Thomas Stauffer holds degrees in Economics and human Resource Management as well as a post-graduate degree in Arts and Cultural Management. He advises Swiss banks on art investments. Stauffer has been the President of the Swiss Art Trading Association since 2021.

The talk will be moderated by Yunlong Song. After the talk everyone is invited for an Apéro.

The talk will be held in English.

More info:https://www.gerberstauffer.com

sinokultur lädt dich ein am Freitag, 19. Januar um 18.30 Uhr unseren Salon mit Jessica Imbach zum Thema "Alles nur Zensur? Einblicke in die chinesische Netzkultur" zu besuchen.

Die Zensur in den sozialen Medien Chinas sorgt fast täglich für internationale Schlagzeilen und in der Tat hat die Überwachung der chinesischen Medienlandschaft seit der Machtübernahme Xi Jinpings merklich zugenommen. Gleichzeitig ist mit TikTok eine chinesische Plattform zu einem globalen Leitmedium aufgestiegen und in China selbst ist die Digitalisierung mit grossen Schritten vorangetrieben worden. Wie ist diese paradoxe Dynamik zwischen Restriktion und Förderung zu verstehen?

Mit einem speziellen Fokus auf den Diskurs der „positiven Energie“ wird Jessica Imbach dieser Frage nachgehen und die vielfältigen Praktiken der staatlichen Einflussnahme in den sozialen Medien Chinas erörtern. Dabei wird sie aber auch aufzeigen wie Chinas Netizens kreativ mit der Zensur umgehen.

Jessica Imbach ist Dozentin für chinesische Literatur an der Universität Zürich und beschäftigt sich in ihrer Forschung mit Science-Fiction und dem technologischen Wandel in China.

Der Anlass wird von Yun Long Song moderiert. Anschliessend an den Vortrag und das Gespräch findet ein kleiner Apéro zum austauschen und kennenlernen statt.

Wir freuen uns dich in unserem ersten Salon im 2024 willkommen heissen zu dürfen!

sinokultur would love to invite you to our Salon with Basel-based Hong Kong curator Angelika Li on Friday, November 24 from 6 to 9 pm.

Angelika will talk about her projects PF25 cultural projects, and Homeland in Transit, as well as introduce us to several Hong Kong artists . 

Angelika is committed to engaging with the essence of local culture, heritage and valued stories, and driving a continuous dialogue between local and international communities. In 2018, she co-founded with Donald Mak PF25 cultural projects, a non-profit organisation which aims to build mutual understanding, to develop an intercultural network and to generate creative energies between Basel and Hong Kong.

Angelika is also the founder and curator of the exhibition series 'Homeland in Transit' (Basel 2019-2023; Berlin 2020-2021; Murrhardt 2021; Zollikon 2022; Hong Kong, Zurich, Freiburg 2023, Ishigaki, 2024) channelling narratives and imaginations of ‘homeland’ from Hong Kong perspectives: boundaries, roots, diaspora, cultural identity, colonial ideologies, displacement and interweaving them with experiences and voices from other parts of the world. 

Before moving to Switzerland in 2017, she was the founding director of MILL6 Foundation in Hong Kong bringing it to ICOM museum status and achieving the Award for Arts Promotion by Hong Kong Arts Development Council in 2016.

Angelika holds a BA in History of Art and Architecture from the University of Reading, and an MA in Cultural Management from the Chinese University in Hong Kong. She was guest curator for the program Brice Marden. Inner Space at Kunstmuseum Basel in March 2022.

After the event we will enjoy an Apéro together and have a chance to exchange more ideas and questions. The event will be moderated by Yunlong Song.

More info: https://www.pf25.org

On Friday, September 29, 2023, 6pm Yang Yang, Director Asia of Galerie Urs Meile Zurich - Lucerne – Beijing, will talk to us about her career path, her daily business at the gallery, and the Chinese contemporary art market.

Moving to Switzerland in 2013, she first studied at the University of Zurich and received a Master of Arts in Art Market Studies. Joining the gallery in 2015, Yang has worked her way up and gained valuable experience working at the forefront in the art world, both in China and Switzerland.

In her current role as Director Asia at Galerie Urs Meile, Yang is responsible for overseeing the gallery’s operations, including developing and managing relationships with artists, collectors, and curators, expanding the gallery’s reach as well as coordinating exhibition programs and event initiatives.

Galerie Urs Meile was one of the first international galleries to focus on the Chinese art scene. As a person who is committed to promoting the work of Chinese artists to a global audience, Yang often finds herself in a special position bridging different cultural mindsets and working methodology between the art worlds of China and Europe as an intermediator, which she would be further elaborating.

The relationship with artists remains at the core of a gallery’s business. How to select artists to work with is often an extremely complex consideration for galleries, and this process is often not revealed. In this regard, Yang will share with us some of her personal experiences. 

As an art market frontline worker, Yang will discuss the status quo of the Chinese contemporary art market, how it has developed over time, and the factors that have contributed to its growth. Who are the collectors of Chinese contemporary art - to identify the key characteristics will also be attempted - and how they differ from Western collectors.

https://www.galerieursmeile.com/

On Friday, June 23, 2023, at 6 pm you are invited to join our Salon in dialogue with the Chinese artist Zeng Zhe.

She will talk about her life as an artist and about her most recent project. Zeng Zhe will present the book Another Place, Some Other Time (2022) which was a joint project with Chinese curator Li Zhenhua. We will also have a chance to watch the film about the making of the book.

The book is a journey through pandemic times, some words and drawings, and a collaboration between Zeng Zhe and Li Zhenhua that took two years. Zeng Zhe came to Berlin from Beijing a few years before the pandemic which brought life to a standstill, but it also gave her time to focus on a flood of creativity in a small living space. The book is nearly 400 pages long, beautifully printed and hand-marked, all echoing the artist's state of being, and is timed to the development of the pandemic, interspersed with texts from Li Zhenhua, as well as poems, phrases and texts that he collected and compiled (Text: Burki & Li).

The film ‘Another Place, Some Other Time’ presents Zeng Zhe's creative process and everyday state. A displaced person, a three-year epidemic, a hometown that cannot be returned to. Through repeated brush strokes, the borders of paper and time gradually deposited traces, regular or irregular edges, tangible and intangible, colours accompanying the paper and pigments, appearing in the light.

Zeng Zhe 曾喆 (*1980) was born in Zhejiang. She entered the secondary school affiliated of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1996 and the Central Academy of Drama in 1999, majoring in stage design. In 2014, she held a solo exhibition, "Moment of Being" (EGG Gallery, Beijing), moved to Berlin in 2017, participated in the choreography of the opera "Turandot" at Ai Weiwei Studio in 2018-2019, and completed the book “Another Place, Some Other Time" with Li Zhenhua from 2020-2022. Currently lives and works in Berlin.

Li Zhenhua 李振华 was born in Beijing in 1975 and currently works in Zurich, Berlin and Hong Kong. He has been active in contemporary art since 1996 mainly covering curation, art making and project management. 

On Thursday, May 25, 2023, at 6pm you are invited to join our Salon in dialogue with galerist Julia Lechbinska. She will talk about "Contemporaneity & identity of Chinese artists".

What stands behind the term “contemporary Chinese art”? Is it correct to coin such a term in the discourse of globalised art histories? Can the works by expatriate Chinese artists still be called Chinese art? And finally, what makes contemporary Chinese art so attractive to Western collectors? These are the questions, that a young gallerist and art historian Julia Lechbinska faces in her daily work. 

sinokultur im Salon invites you to step into the history and development of contemporary Chinese art and its reception in the West. We’ll learn some examples of how traditional materials and techniques were rediscovered and enabled Chinese artists to maintain their identity. 

Julia studied art history at the University of Zurich with a focus on East Asia. Afterwards she did several trainings in art expertise, and worked for the auction house Ineichen. From 2015 Julia organized her first exhibitions, which led to the foundation of Lechbinska Gallery in Zurich in 2020.

The event will be held in English.

More info: https://lechbinska.art

On Thursday, March 23, 2023, at 6pm the Swiss author, sinologist and editor Alice Grünfelder, will talk about her latest book "Wolken über Taiwan" (2022). Alice Grünfelder, born in 1964 in the Black Forest, learned to be a bookseller, studied sinology and German studies, worked as an editor and translator, and spent several long periods in Asia. She has published many literary and essay short texts in various media, including Wasp's Nest, and edited books on Far Eastern countries. Alice lives and works in the city of Zurich.

The event will be held in German.

For more info about the author: https://www.literaturfelder.com

On Friday, January 27, 2023, at 6pm Angela Lyn, a Swiss artist of Anglo-Chinese origin, born to an English mother and a Chinese father in the 50’s, will talk about the complexities of how cultures mix and the influence this has had on her life as an artist. The title of the talk will be In Between and the slow walk to consolidation. 

Angela Lyn was born in Windsor, England in 1955 to a Chinese father and English mother. In 1978, she moved to Switzerland and attended the master class for painting under the direction of Franz Fedier at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel. Since 1994, she has lived and worked in Ticino, southern Switzerland. 

https://angelalyn.com/