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Chen Zhen, Daily Incantations, 1996 (installation view detail)
| Ask the Artists: Chen Zhen |
| Question 1: It is difficult to hear the sounds in Daily Incantations when there are other people in the gallery. Are visitors supposed to be able to hear and understand the sounds emanating from the sculpture? Where were the sounds recorded? |
| The weakness of the sounds from the work is due to the Museum condition of a group show. The sound was stronger originally for the work, but as there are many works in the same space, I suppose that the people from museum reduce the sounds for a better cohabitation of all the works. I recorded this sound from the street in Shanghai where Chinese women clean everyday morning the chamber pots. |
| Question 2: Where did you collect the chamber pots? |
| I collected the chamber pots from my native city, Shanghai where it happens a great change in terms of urbanism. During this occidentalisation of urbanism, thousands of thousands the old traditional houses are destroyed. All the chamber pots come from there. They are a kind of witness of the change of globalization. |
| Question 3: Why don't you live in China anymore? |
| It’s very difficult to continue a work like what I do now in China because of the political, ideological and social problems. The freedom of personal expression in art is not yet so open and flexible like in the western world or other places in the world. But I still visit very often my native country not only for my family but also for retying my cultural roots. |
| Question 4: How does living in the western world influence your artwork and the development of your career? |
| For me, the fact to live in western world is to live in an open space where I can go to everywhere, visit any culture and dialogue with most of the people. Of cause there are an influence of western culture in my work. But, the most important thing is that the cultural hybrid is no longer limited only between two cultures, but among the many cultures and civilisations. I think that the fact being in the western world allows me and helps me a lot to question all these multicultural or global-local problems. I am very happy to have a lot of people who support my work and understand what I want to do. |
| Chen Zhen's CI:99/00 page |