All the Way South in exchange with Cuba in 2019

Times Museum is pleased to announce the selection of 2 artists (groups) for All the Way South in Exchange with Cuba in 2019, in which Havana was chosen as a geographical coordinate for artistic exchange. Adrián Melis is invited by Times Museum to carry out his residency in Guangzhou at the end of 2018 and will visit Stone Grain Space in Dongguan to investigate the shifting labor force of the local manufacturing industries. For the open call co-launched by Artista x Artista (Havana) and Times Museum for the residency in Havana in 2019, proposals from Hanlu Zhang, Yang Yuanyuan, Ma Haijiao, Pu Yingwei, Hera Chan & Xiaoshi Vivian Vivian Qin had been shortlisted. Hera Chan & Xiaoshi Vivian Vivian Qin as a group has been unanimously chosen by a committee consists of Jorge Luis Marrero (artist, Cuba), Yornel Martínez (artist, Cuba), Farah Gómez (Artista X Artista coordinator) and Nikita Yingqian Cai (Chief Curator, Times Museum). Both artists (groups) will present their works and research initiatives at the upcoming para-curatorial symposium South of the South: Rhetorics of Geography and Imageries of Delinking at Times Museum on Dec. 19-21, 2018. 

We have received plenty of inspiring proposals from artists, curators, film makers, architects and researchers. We would like to express our gratitude to allies and friends who have been part of the conversation, and hope to form a map of alternative geographies and southern constellations in the coming future. After the residencies of 2019, one of the proposals from the 2 selected artists (groups) would be granted further funding for production by Times Museum. 

Please roll down to learn more about the artists and their projects, as well as our institutional partners.

 Adrián Melis and the shifting force of affective labor in the area of Guangzhou 

Adrián Melis

Havana, Cuba 1985

Adrián Melis’s research in the area of Guangzhou will focus on the affective mechanisms that some labor-intensive factories have developed since the early 1990’s, by which the factories have been transformed from sweatshops to sophisticated labor regimes. Control and disciplinary measures are enacted as affective tools for control. Almost acting as individual States, these factories organize the lives and well-being of their workforce, and create the illusion of happiness in exchange for their loyalty and dedication. Definitions of happiness are fabricated by the very company that wishes to keep the workers in close proximity to their work post, rewarding them with a predetermined life-quality. The way soft control operates within these factories bares similarities to Che Guevara’s understanding of an individual that will only be fulfilled through perpetual labor. To what extend can contentment be fabricated? The products of immaterial labor are intangible, yet to what extend is affective labor linked with production output? Between the worker and the assembly line, psyche and work, affect enters the production line. 

Surplus Production Line, 2014

video-Installation, shredded paper, Video, DVD Pal, stereo, color, 10:00 min

video stills, courtesy of the artist

Dream Production Plan for State run companies in Cuba, 2011-2014

wooden boxes, written paper, photographs 20 x 25cm

courtesy of the artist

Adrián Melis takes his starting point from the current socioeconomic circumstances in Cuba and in Europe, and investigates how the shifting status quo affects the lives of individuals and in which way societies operate within their structural frameworks. Drawing from issues of unemployment, bureaucratic inefficiency, corporate and political corruption, Melis creates mechanisms in which third-party experiences and stories are integrated into the production or execution of his works. His works are charged with ironies and absurdity, while open channels are kept for formal or symbolic manifestation. Inspired by the lack of motivation and productivity in Cuba, Melis experiments with creating temporary employment both in Cuba and in Europe. 

Adrian Melis is based between Cuba and Europe. He is a former resident at the Rijksakademie van Beldeende Kunsten of Amsterdam (2014/2015). In 2010 he graduated from the University of Art (ISA) in Havana, Cuba and between 2006/2008 participated at the Catedra of Behavioural Art directed by Tania Bruguera. His selected solo shows include: Absolute silence does not exist, Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia (Cerezales, Spain), The Value of Absence, Kunsthalle Basel (Switzerland);STOCK, Museum of Modern Art, MAS (Santander, Spain).Selected group shows: Video Art in Latinoamerica, LAXART, Los Angeles (USA); Hors Pistes, Centre Pompidou Paris (France); Bread and Roses, Museum of Modern Art of Warsaw (Poland); Atopolis, Manège de Sury and WIELS contemporary Art Centre Mons (Belgium), How To Work, Kunsthalle Basel (Switzerland), Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Center, Kiev (Ukraine), Forms of Distancing, Steirischer Herbst Festival, Graz(Austria); Untitled (two takes on crisis), de Appel Arts Center, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Artlab, Queens Museum of Art, New York (USA); Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities, MoMA, New York (USA), 10th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai(China).

 Hera Chan & Xiaoshi Vivian Vivian Qin and their preparation guide for sonic attack 

Hera Chan

Xiaoshi Vivian Vivian Qin

A World Without Speakers is a research project conceived of by curator Hera Chan and artist Xiaoshi Vivian Vivian Qin aimed at creating a sonic attack preparation guide. Thinking about how sound is felt at a physical level and what it means to articulate or to ‘make sound’ in the cities of Havana and Guangzhou, A World Without Speakers will aim to create a sonic attack preparation chamber in an exhibitionary setting that will feature a series of performances that orchestrate certain forms of attunement. United by two “sonic attacks” in 2017 on American embassy personnel in both Havana and Guangzhou that remain a mystery to its investigators, this project will work with sound artists, writers, and poets in Havana to research the notion of ‘bad sound’ and sonic warfare. Drawing from the science fiction legacy of Cuba in imaging and imagining perceptions of experience, A World Without Speakers will guide its viewers and readers through surviving virtualised violence and fear.

Vladimir Gavreau, engineer who focuses on the physiological effects of ultrasound on humans. His experiments later inspired the development of a series of military sonic weapons.

Alberto de la Cruz / Babalú Blog 

Visualzation of sonic attack to the US Embassy in Cuba

Hera Chan is a curator and writer living in Kowloon. She currently curates public programmes at Tai Kwun Contemporary. Committed to sustaining networks of solidarity and building media infrastructures, she acted as director/curator of Videotage in Hong Kong from 2017 to 2018. She is co-founder of Atelier Céladon in Montreal, speaking with diasporic peoples to socially engineer a future that is already possible. Otherwise, she has worked as a researcher and community journalist. In the summer of 2017, she began her international search for Miss Ruthless. Hera was a finalist in Miss Chinese Montreal 2017. Her recent curatorial practices includes: Cinema of Mask (Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hongkong); Miss Ruthless With A Smile (Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing); In Search of Miss Ruthless (Para Site, Hong Kong). Her upcoming project includes Miss Ruthless Seven Sisters: Global Mermaid Sightings in SAVVY Contemporary and a group show in SAVVY Contemporary.

Xiaoshi Vivian Vivian Qin (b. 1989, Guangzhou) is an artist based in Guangzhou and New York. In 2015, she earned an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University following a BA in Studio Art and Communication from Denison University in 2012. She has hosted high school debates on contemporary art world issues, designed a phone app to find alternate ways to talk about gender issues, organized meetings between scientists, artists and philosophers to address the possibility that we live in a simulation, and organized fictional panels that took place in the future. She is currently devoting her time to researching “Boy’s Love” (BL) culture and writing a BL novel about doomsday prepping in Shenzhen. Xiaoshi Vivian Vivian’s work has been exhibited at Taikang Space, Beijing (2018), Para Site, Hong Kong (2017), OCAT Shenzhen (2017), You Won't Be Young Forever curated by Biljana Ciric, Shanghai (2016), Queens Museum, New York (2016), Barnard College, New York (2016), Spring/Break Art Show, New York (2016), 221A, Vancouver (2015), Fisher Landau Center, Queens (2015), Jewish Museum, New York (2014), and Wallach Art Gallery, New York (2014). Her solo exhibitions included Lv Hua Dai at Salt Projects, Beijing (2018) and Things to Come at Weekend, Seoul (2017). Her upcoming project includes collaboration with Heidi Lau at Triple Canopy. She was a part of the Para Site residency hosted by Spring Workshop in 2017. She is a winner of the Lotos Foundation Prize in 2015 nominated by Sarah Sze. Her writing has appeared in Modern Weekly and LEAP. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Ruthless Lantern, a gossip art magazine.  

——  Institutional Partners  ——

Stone Grain Space is an independent art space which was transformed from the former residence of He family with 30 years of history. In December 2016, art philanthropist Shu Jinhua and artist Li Jinghu initiated the Stone Grain Residency project, and invited Wang Wei and He Yingyi to transform the space into a multifunctional residency where artists can live, research and work together. Stone Grain Space aims at redefine the cultural role of Dongguan and encourages exchanges between artists from different areas. Centered around the residency and its open spirits, Stone Grain Space hope to nurture situated practice and knowledge of contemporary art in the city of Dongguan and contribute to local and international collaborations.  

Artista X Artista has a staff that provides all the necessary information to the resident artist as well as programming, depending on their interests. The artist is provided with a wonderful space to stay, located in a very central place in Havana. Situated at the third floor of a modernist building from the 50s and in the neighborhood of Miramar in Havana, the residency space has a large living room with plenty of natural light, two bedrooms with bathrooms and independent terraces, kitchen-dining room equipped with refrigerator, gas stove, oven and utensils. Service patio with water heater and automatic washing machine. The apartment has a terrace with beautiful views of the sea. All rooms open to the outside and allow the entry of natural light and ventilation. We have a person who takes care of the cleaning. The building has an elevator and garage.

Coming Soon

作者：广东时代美术馆