Artists
Photo Credit: NIU Chun-Chiang
Chen Yi
Chen Yi
| Location | Germany / Berlin |
|---|---|
| Residency | Künstlerhaus Bethanien |
| Year of the Grant | 2020 |
| Work | Lichen_ |
In Yi’s cross-disciplinary artistic practice, he aims to explore issues including human desire, existence, data, environment, politics, economy, and society through the observation and comparison of tangible substance and virtual consciousness. Chen is accustomed to reassemble concepts, media, issues, and site-specific contexts in a set environment. With such a basis, he adopts philosophical dialectic and artistic language in his practice.
Artist Statement:
[Open Studio]
Künstlerhaus Bethanien organizes open studios every six months to facilitate engagements among residency artists. In the past, administrators would invite all residency artists to visit all studios on the next day after open studio events. The arrangement was cancelled this year due to the pandemic. However, some artists still proposed a gathering after open studio, so people could know each other better.
[Curator Visits]
Künstlerhaus Bethanien also arranges curator visits irregularly. Administrators choose curators, but artists can also propose preferred candidates or those relevant to their creative orientations. If curators agree, Bethanien provides a residency artist list, so curators can select coming artists. Artists may benefit from curator visits proposed by other artists.
Each curator visit lasts about one hour. During my residency, I participated in three visits to video curators Olaf Stüber and Heike Fuhlbrügge, as well as Taiwanese curator Wang Chun-Chi living in Berlin. These visits also extended my creative plans. I participated in an exhibition curated by Wang in Israel the next year, and Art Berlin Contemporary.
[Residency Suggestions]
During the residency, I was lucky to receive assistances by Taiwanese artists and friends living in Berlin. They helped me to know around the place and connect with more people. I would suggest Taiwan Representative Office in Berlin to compile a list of Taiwanese art workers, creators, and curators in Berlin/Germany. The list may also include German artists who have been to Taiwan for residency, exhibitions, or performances. It will be beneficial for residency creators in Germany or Europe to spend their time more efficiently with better resources and networks.
[Residency Creative Plan]
During the Berlin residency in 2021, I collected samples in the city to create “Lichen_”. The work uses 3D scanning to document information about human living environment and focuses on homeless people dwelling in the city. They habitat at city corners in different ways or occupy some public spaces.
“Lichen_” records homeless people at the margins of wealthy European societies and presents an adaptive format in capitalist societies. Videos capture an undocumented immigrant living under a bridge, who describes personal living experiences and survival ways in the city. In those images, he collects a large number of ready-made items to decorate and create. It’s a special and unconventional sample.
This creative process with 3D scanning is an experiment to record real life with digital means and data. In the world that offline and online coexist, this experiment will continue to extend.
Author: Chen Yi
Edited: Brix