Beyond the Future: Papers from the Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

SPEAKER: Chen Zhen I would like to begin by saying a few words about my way of living and thinking in relation to my work . Actually today's theme is healing, so I probably should talk a little bit about my double sickness. I have to say I am a long distance runner of sickness . For twenty years I have had a serious health problem - a disease of the blood . I cannot recover but I try my best and I'm fine now. I try to turn this very negative health problem into a positive advantage through my work, through the thinking behind my work, my observing of the world and so on. The second disease - probably you will have the same - that's the disease of travelling. Today I counted that I spend about 200 days a year residing in hotels in different situations like here, so it's very contradictory to talk about this because one view says the artist shouldn't travel too much because you lose your concentration , you lose your nutrition from the experience. On the other hand now the great phenomenon of decentralisation and globalisation is everywhere like here where we take 30 hours to come here. I don 't want to refuse the invitation from APT for example, so I have to travel and I have to spend two weeks in a hotel . I think the issue is not to refuse passively such a kind of sickness. The question is how to turn such negative points and negative elements into a very dynamic way of living and thinking. For several years I have developed ideas and practice around work called 'transexperiences'. That means I take part in a generation who have spent ten years during the Cultural Revolution , ten years during Chinese reform, Chinese opening, and now over ten years in the western context especially, travelling on the different continents . So I think in the space of myself there's a kind of meeting d ialogue, sometimes a conflict, between my own experience, so this is a first crossing experience in myself. The second 'transexperiences' is each meeting with others. So here for example I learn a lot. When I talk about learn ing I remember very important th ings that I have a lot of experience with , such as re-education during the Cultural Revolution , because Mao said we should send the small bourgeoisie to the countryside, to the factories, to be re-educated through the farmer, soldier and the worker. So I th ink now I try also to transform this idea into my own way of living , that means trying to take all occasions to learn something from others' cultu re. That suddenly touched a very important point. After ten years working in the western context I felt I was in a marginal ised position at the beginning of my stay in Paris, and l ittle by l ittle a coming to the centre, and I showed a lot of works in museums and so on . Now I'm conscious about this situation, about th is position , so I try to through this practice, this idea of 'transexperiences', to push myself into a re-self-marginalisation prqcess, that means I try to work, live, spend several months every year out of a traditional western context. IMAGE This is my round table piece. Actually living in a western context I have to say I love the Chinese food in Chinatown, but I hate at the same time how Chinese cu lture is reduced to such a small area, very often represented through Chinatown or Chinese restaurants. But I found the round table is a very important cultural phenomenon and I thought that probably one day I could do something. When I was invited to participate in the show to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the United Nations I suddenly thought I would like to do a huge round table piece. In this context, especially in this context, the round table is a very international political term so I tried to combine these two round table ideas where in my own culture it's a meeting, a union, harmony between the people, and on the other hand at the international level it's negotiation , arguing and all impossible discussion. So actually I built a huge round table about six metres in diameter and I collected about 30 chairs wh ich came from the five continents and from all different social classes . I MAGE After finishing the round table piece in a very pol itical context I was invited by the First Shanghai Biennial to submit a proposal so I realised a bigger table which I called Game table. I put about 1 50,000 Chinese money coins on the table and about thirty-six Chinese chamberpots under the table. In China we talk about the bad smell of bronze because all the 1 67