Folk in Order
Historical Variations and Contemporary Reverberations of Folk
2024.08.31 Saturday 15:00
Location
Macalline Center of Art, 706 Beiyi St, 798 Art Zone, No.2 Jiuxianqiao Lu, Chaoyang District, Beijing
Guest Speakers: Yuan Xianxin、Wang Huan
Historical Variations of Folk
From a historical perspective, scholar Yuan Xianxin will trace the emergence of the theme of "folk" in the intellectual and cultural history of the first half of the 20th century. Around the time of the May Fourth Movement, there was a "Going to the People" movement in China, which had wide-ranging effects. One important aspect of this movement was the birth of modern Chinese folk literature and folklore studies. Through this movement, "folk" began to emerge as an important theme of concern for Chinese intellectuals. The understanding and interpretation of "folk" reverberated across different fields, including literature, art, history, and ethnology. Since then, the theme "folk" has been evolving and generating durational echoes throughout subsequent history.
Strangers in the Central Plain
——Pao Gong (run beneficence), Xie Zhang (account writing), an impulse of gathering
Curator and writer Wang Huan will share his experience of fieldwork in the contemporary folk society with the artist Zhang Xiao in recent years, telling a research on secret societies and the inner drive of art: in the Central Plain region, on certain days, tens of thousands of people gather in a square. They talk about mythical experiences and the inescapable "fate" that happened to them; there are also a considerable number of participants who will engage in "artistic creation" spontaneously. They were modern-day seekers of immortality or, as the locals called them, "maniacs." They formed their own orders, resembling a folded "secret society" with hierarchies, histories, roles and responsibilities, and networks. Their existence stimulates historical imagination, disturbing people's expectations of a modern civilized world and the connection between cities and contemporary individuals...
About Guest Speaker：Yuan Xianxin
Dr. Yuan Xianxin currently works as associate professor at School of Humanities, Tsinghua University and TIAS. She received her Ph.D in modern Chinese literature (2016), and B.A in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies (2007) from Tsinghua University. From 2016-18, she worked at TIAS as Postdoctoral fellow and assistant researcher. She held visiting researcher post at EALC, Harvard University (2011-12) and Tokyo University (2017 summer). Dr. Yuan’s research fields include modern Chinese literature, intellectual history and cultural history in modern East Asia, Marxism and critical theory. Her journal articles appear in Literary Review, Open Times, Modern Chinese Literature Studies, Frontiers of Literary Studies in China. Dr. Yuan won Tang Tao Prize for Young Scholars in Literary Studies (2023). She was also awarded Shiheng Fellowship for Young Scholars of 2022.
About Guest Speaker：Wang Huan
Wang Huan is a Beijing-based writer, critic and curator. He is the co-founder and chief editor of GENERAL (manual). In 2018, he won the first prize of the 5th International Awards for Art Criticism (IAAC). In 2019, he won the PSA Emerging Curators Project. In 2024, he was selected for the De Ying curatorial fellowship 2024-2025. He has published a series of art criticisms and essays in various media such as Twenty-First Century (21C), ARTFORUM, ArtReview, LEAP Magazine, Ocula, Jiazazhi Magazine, CLABO (Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab), etc. Selected curatorial projects including "Guo Fengyi: Cosmic Meridians" (2023, Long March Space), "Sunset on a Dead End: The Notorious and Their Inexplicable Modes of Existence" (2019, Power Station of Art), etc. He has also published many books, including GENERAL manual Vol.1: Contemporary Punctum, Guo Fengyi: Cosmic Meridians, Nothing Left but Words, Wushu Xiuci (myth rhetorical), and more. Recently, he has been working on a cross-cultural research project focusing on secret society and art.
