Lunch will be provided.
Please RSVP to globalethnographies@gmail.com by March 23.
Download the poster here.
Reframing Waterscapes
re-imagines the spaces and experiences of global migration along the Yangtze River in China. In particular, it explores the human displacement and environmental devastation associated with the Three Gorges Dam (TGD), the world’s largest hydroelectric power plant and arguably the largest public works project in history. Since dam construction first began in 1994, over fourteen thousands hectares of agricultural land have been submerged, including 100 towns and archeological sites, an official 1.3 million people have been displaced, and massive landslides and related dam pollution has resulted in an array of ecological ills. How do we understand the vast social, economic, political and ecological transformations associated with the dam? What role does art, as well as interdisciplinary collaborations between artists and researchers, play in advancing such understandings?
The exhibit will feature work from a 2011 trip, in which Gu Xiong as well as researchers Chris Lee and Jennifer Chun, traveled 1,800 kilometers along the Yangzi River from Chongqing to Shanghai, with stops in Fengjie, Wushan, Yichang, Wuhan and Nanjing. A series of public events in conjunction with the exhibit will further explore waterways as metaphors for displacement, survival and renewal.
For more information, please visit the Waterscapes blog: http://blogs.ubc.ca/waterscapes/about-2/
About the Artist
Gu Xiong is Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory at UBC. A multi-media artist from China who now lives in Canada, Gu works with painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, photography, video, digital imagery, text, performance art, and installation. He has exhibited nationally and internationally including more than 35 solo exhibitions and three public art commissions. Much of Gu Xiong's work focuses on the dynamics of globalization and on identity shifts for individuals and local cultures; he addresses integration and assimilation, histories both collective and personal, and cultural synthesis across boundaries. Waterscapes, a SSHRC-funded research creation project, seeks to integrate community- engaged visual arts production and migration research to ignite discussion amongst migrant communities and to rethink the spaces of contemporary global migration flows.
The artist and research term gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
