Descending

Descending
— An Exhibition Review

By Luo Fei

In a room of the cultural space that has been adapted from an abandoned factory, there is a set of installation made of steel on the floor. It’s only as high as the knee, yet it almost filled the entire room. Audiences have to walk along the wall to go around it to observe it. Thick hemp ropes were tied tightly and neatly on the frame. The ropes went through the sleeves and pant legs of T-shirts and pants of different shades of green. They were from local second-hand market. They are either made stretched flat or slightly loosed hanging on the hemp ropes. The whole frame looked like a sturdy safety net, as if to catch fallen objects from the sky. From the knots on the frame and the ink marks whipped on the three pieces of paper exhibiting nearby, one can obviously feel the sense of power and determination.

As you get near this “safety net,” you could vaguely hear a low male voice (Chinese) and a crispy female voice (English) were reading something. Ah, it’s a poem – “Imaginary Routes”. It’s portraying a number of descriptive pictures, from the descriptions of open landscape quickly zooming in to narrations of the human condition. It’s a sound of self-reflection and contemplation. It seemed that the situation was tense. The contemplation and struggle that were hanging right above the earth was readily felt, like a very low cloud floated near from afar. The whole poem was hanged on the translucent paper next to the entrance to the “safety net”.

It’s a work by the Norwegian artist Sveinung Rudjord Unneland and the Danish writer Andreas Vermehren Holm during their stay in Kunming.

Also put on display were some Polaroid photos that Unirande and Holm took on the streets in Kunming. All of them were partially painted green, like the fences used to enclose the constructing buildings. It’s done in a way as if the city is always under construction – in fact that is the case. That is exactly what the exhibition is all about – a visible, never-finished world and an unseen and never-weary crowd in it.

In a society where social Darwinism is popular, life is bound to be an “Ascending Movement”. However, under the logic of the global capitalist economy, the people at the bottom always face the reality of being expelled. They are expelled from where they stay, where they work as well as their former life, and in turn they make a part of the creatures in the biosphere expelled from their habitat. Dignity is simply something too luxurious.

It seems that Unirande and Holm did not mean to present a tragedy, nor a hymn to praise the proletariat, but simply to outline, describe and examine the overall situation of mankind. It’s those who are at the bottom of the social landscape and put in the wide landscape that are interwoven, mutually constructed and stretched to form a solid “safety net”. Because everything will go back to the earth. And everything starts from here.

The exhibition combined the knowledge of the social framework and the contemplation related to existence, and mingled them with their visual forms and literariness. They formed a perceivable and readable passage that invites us to experience the inherent power of this “Descending Movement.”

December 6, 2017

“下行运动”展评

下行运动 Descending
——有关“下行运动”展评

文:罗菲

在这座由废弃工厂改造的文化空间的一个房间里,摆放着一座由钢架搭建组合的装置,只有膝盖那么高,几乎塞满了整个房间,观众只能围着它的四周,沿着墙垣边走边看。架子上面规整地绷着粗粗的麻绳,绳子穿过一些绿色系的T恤和裤子的袖筒和裤筒。那是一些从本地二手市场淘来的衣物,被麻绳绷得平展或稍微松弛。整个架子看上去像是一个结实的安全网,似乎为了接住来自高空的坠物。从一个个系在架子上的绳结,还有一旁展示的三幅绳子鞭策在纸上的墨痕,能让人看到一种力量和决心。

当你靠近这个“安全网”,你能隐约听到一些十分低沉的男声(中文)和清脆的女声(英文)在念着什么——那是一首诗,《想象的路径》(Imaginary Routes)。声音是一些颇具镜头感的画面,从开阔风景的描绘迅速拉近到对人类处境的叙述,自省与沉思的声音。处境似乎有些紧迫,可又能感受到那些悬置在大地之上的沉思与挣扎,像是远远飘来的压得很低很低的云。整首诗挂在“安全网”入口旁的半透明的纸上。

这是挪威艺术家斯韦宁·乌尼兰德(Sveinung Rudjord Unneland)和丹麦作家安德里亚斯·霍尔姆(Andreas Vermehren Holm)在昆明驻留期间创作的作品。

展览上还有一些是乌尼兰德和霍尔姆在昆明街头拍摄的宝丽来照片,上面都被局部地刷上了绿色,像是建筑物围挡施工所需,以至于这座城市看上去总是处于施工状态——事实上也是。这正是整个展览所要呈现的,一个看得见的永不完工的世界和一个看不见的永不疲惫的人群。

在社会达尔文主义盛行的社会,生活注定是一场“上行运动”(Ascending Movement)。在全球资本主义经济的逻辑下,底层人群总是面对着被驱逐的现实,从土地上、工作中和曾经的生活中被驱逐,又把生物圈的一部分从生境中驱逐。尊严,是极其奢侈的。

乌尼兰德和霍尔姆所呈现的似乎并非一个悲剧,也不是一首颂扬队无产阶级的赞歌,而是对人类自身普遍处境的塑造、叙述与审视。作为社会风景里的底层和作为广阔风景里的人相互交织、相互构建、相互拉伸,形成一张结结实实的“安全网”。因为一切都将回落大地,一切,也都从这里开始。

展览把社会框架里的知识与有关存在的沉思糅合在视觉形式与文学性中,它们形成一个可感可读的通道,邀请我们在其中经历这场“下行运动”内在的力量。

2017年12月6日