Marjorier Ding
About
Conceived as a new platform for radical learning and collective making in public space, both online and on-site, WaterWays aims to restore and regenerate broken relationships between humans and the living organisms of the Regent's Canal. At the core of the project is a commission by the artist collectives AusBlau and Applied Logic that have co-created a digital game for environmental data collection entitled Canal Observatory. By looking at the biodiversity of Camley Street Natural Park and recognising it through “canal emojis”, Canal Observatory reflects on who can collect data, how this is accessible as well as how it can improve our relations with the immediate surrounding.
Behind the scenes, WaterWays creates an ecosystem of alliances recognising agency to those who have been working with water and data for much longer than the curatorial team; the project involves scientists and botanists, Central Saint Martins students working on projects to protect the ecosystem, local inhabitants closely linked to the aquatic environment, as well as artists and creative practitioners.
Starting with Canal Assembly at Camley Street Natural Park, WaterWays invited neighbouring Central Saint Martins students to re-imagine the canal as a learning space, sharing ideas and pieces of their personal research on these fragile ecosystems. Which was then expanded on in a workshop where AusBlau asked the students to respond to quadrants across the park, not only observing the ecosystem but sensing and corresponding with its more-than-human inhabitants.
The project continues with a series of interviews that offer more expansive research into the ecology of the Regent’s Canal aiming to give a voice to water. These vary from an exchange in inhabitants of this ecosystem both human and more-than-human to more in-depth discussions with botanist and researcher Mark Spencer, artist and urban farmer Michael Smythe and architect Carlotta Novella.
WaterWays legacy is presented on a low emissions website designed by Applied Logic, that has been produced to minimise the unnecessary energy consumption and CO2 emissions that result from navigating the internet. Retaining the project's manifesto to not only talk about ecology but also to think and act ecologically.
Statement
Marjorier Ding comes from an interdisciplinary background in media, marketing, production and art curation with international study and work experience. She is the first recipeint of the Chinese national scholarship for Art Talent in curation and the co-founder of Tiderip, an experimental curating collective.
Her main focuses in terms of contemporary art curation are on performance and media art while she also practices as a photographer, a videographer, a director and a producer, from time to time. Throughout her recent practice as a freelance curator, she finds it fascinating to communicate and collaborate with artists, building trust in order to generate new working scenarios such as working outside of the white cube.
Her research focuses on curating in virtual spaces and curatorial futures. She is particularly amazed by the possibilities in virtuality where endless imagination and creativity can be introduced without physical limitations.
Her idea of the future curator is 'the initiator, organiser, facilitator and inquirer of ourselves and others, and this questions our knowledge of the curatorial and our understanding of society, technology, culture, and history.'
Penumbral Zone 2022 London
The Universe Gallery is honoured to announce a group exhibition titled Penumbral Zone, from 8th to 14th April 2022. This show is curated by Marjorier Ding and Liu Jiaqi, and 14 emerging artists worldwide are invited to present their latest works at Gallery 46 in London.
Like silhouette in the mist, truth is barely perceivable. The cohesion of Yin and Yang is the driving source behind all existence, from Sun, Moon and stars to the sky and the earth, order and chaos, and happiness alongside sorrow. Beneath the mottled bulge is the calmness in Turner's landscape, the joyful dancing in Poussin's paintings, and the peaceful rest stop in Wordsworth's struggles. We invite the audience to wander, listen and meditate, to construct a connection between people via nature and materials, calling upon the fluctuation of inner emotions.
As the core and origin of the show, the transformation of perception is embodied in every instant of life. Where is the recreation place of the mind? What is the placebo for the spirit? Dwelling in the blank space, our luminous minds can finally find the self thoroughly.
In Collaboration with:
- Liu Jiaqi (co-curator)
Liu Jiaqi is currently studying for an MA in Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art. She holds a Foundation and Bachelor's degree from UAL Central Saint Martins and London College of Fashion. She has been involved in managing events for several fashion brands in China. She has also worked as a curator in the UK on both online and offline art and fashion related exhibitions.
Beyond Mountains 2022 London
Mountain Watching is a well-received motto in Zen, which embodies and symbolises the contrasting and fluid relationship between individuals' state of mind as well as encounter and objects' nature. In the eyes of artists, no matter they are delving internally into themselves or gazing at external objects, often it ends with a projection of their own experience, either explicitly or inclusively. When authors leave the party, and only creations are left, we stumble into a Nomadland, rolling and tossing, seeking the intangible neutrality that might be closest to the objectivity and ourselves. Me spectating and spectating on myself, wholesomely by essence, appeal to the truth of self-consciousness and self-consistency.
In Collaboration with:
- Abdollah Nafisi
Abdollah Nafisi is an Iranian artist based in Sussex, UK working with organic materials to create improvised sculptures. With a background in carpentry and art, Abdollah uses locally sourced wood as his primary material, viewing the wood as a time machine. On this basis of objecthood, he examines issues of heritage and temporality with elements such as fire and metal. - Hou Jiahui
Hou Jiahui（b.1998）was born in China. Royal college of art 2020-2022. Her work has been featured in a number of group exhibitions held in Shanghai, Chongqing, Hebei, Shanxi in China, and London in the UK. - Hyesu Kim
Hyesu's work explores uneasy emotions that she experiences through the immediacy of drawing and the expressiveness of colours. The figures that emerge in her practice have the qualities of fictional characters seen in cartoons, conveying difficult emotions to the viewer in a humorous way. Such playful characters and absurd narratives allude to various states such as uneasiness, loneliness, helplessness, and lethargy. - Matvei Matveev
Matvei Matveev creates works that explore a political language of bondage and fetishism. His imagery speaks of masking, domination and abuse that he aligns with the current politics in his country of birth–Russia. Relying on the context of the work and the politics underpinning it, he playfully argues through a pop-art direct style of image-making. As a multidisciplinary artist, Matvei engages with experimental practices and materials to create work ranging from Painting to 3D objects. - Michaela D’Agat
Michaela D’Agati (b.1992) works with a process-orientated practice, governed by the materials she uses to liberate lines and shapes, using drawing as a way of thinking through doing. This results in a singular pursuit between her works existing as drawing and being an inquiry of drawing practice simultaneously. - Rachel Bungey
After working in the music industry for five years, Rachel moved to Tokyo to start a design studio (Mantis Studio) with a goal to fund her art practice. She has worked as a creative / art director in the music industry for seven years. Working in-house for XL Recordings and as a freelancer, she has worked on many musicians’ global album campaigns. Rachel is now a full-time student at the RCA, Sculpture MA programme. Her work explores questions around new technologies, abstraction, perception and environment - So Young Kim
So Young Kim is a Korean artist based in London and Singapore. She has been actively participating in the contemporary art scene for about 10years. She holds a (Hons) degree in fine art (2013) and is currently enrolled in the Royal College of Art (2020-2022). Kim’s working process starts with collecting images of fragments and debris from objects on internet platforms, which she then transforms into new compositions. - Tom Harper
Fascinated by old machinery and printing technology, Tom Harper uses one of the oldest printing techniques, graphite rubbings, as a kind of memorial, recording the history of an intaglio printing press and capturing the traces left by the hallmarks of time. Having a physical, tactile engagement with the work, is key in allowing a truly embodied experience that borders on the devotional, producing an intimate engagement that brings that object to life. - Xinyu Hao
Xinyu Hao (b.1994,) is a visual artist based in London & Beijing. After completing his bachelor’s degree in the Central Academy of Fine Arts, he continues to develop his practice on MA photography at the Royal College of Art. His works focus on the relationship between geo-social culture, surrounding environment, and individuals. He deploys photography as the main medium and expression of his works and explores the marginalisation of images by combining sculpture, performance, video, and installation. - Zeng Jiujian
Zeng Jiujian regards all media as channels to bridge matter and consciousness in his practice. Scepticism and insecurities about the objective world have led him to use art as a means of travelling inside and constructing himself, and to explore the inherent relationship between artistic expression and display while searching for a critical point of endogenous emergence at the edge of media communication.
Pull Over and Take a Cig 2022 London
When perpetual motion, entropy and human’s complicated nature are intertwined, they swing between order and chaos, constructing a vivid metaphor of the present. In The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han accurately describes predominant anxiety and depression in modern times. In a social environment that advocates achievement and vitality, individuals are caught up in the exhaustion of their mental energy and often step onto another side of their emotions.
Therefore, pulling over is not only a skill but also a work of art in itself. For Baudrillard, the disappearance of objects comes from the integration of fragmented consciousness into the gaps of reality, whereas the cease of reality constitutes an essential part of the integrity of things. Within the vanishing process, we are able to distinguish more concrete ideas, imagery and pieces once neglected as now they emerge progressively on the surface. Stepping on the path of indefiniteness, the pause in-between indicates our self-reflection and self-recognition, crashing the blindly straightforward direction, clichés and stereotypes. Through contemplation, it may jeopardise our original intention, or on the other hand, by looking back into the journey, we accumulate our strengths and power for the next big move.
Driving my car, it’s up to us whether to continue on the same path or leave all the rules behind. Determination is in this time of a cigarette. Underneath the smoke, we urge to navigate ourselves through the art of disappearance and re-investigate the origin of our self-existence.
Silhouette in the Mist 2021 Shanghai
There is no simple binary opposition between physicality and nihility. These two are often intertwined, interrelated, interacting, and interfering, blurring the boundary between creation and interpretation. When virtuality turns into reality, we build a world of multi-narratives. When the environment is left blank, by conveying the aestheticism of immersion over time, all the storytelling directs to one destination - the resonation between the two continuously breaks and reconstructs the present feelings and experience, reiterating the open-ended relationship between human beings and surroundings. Alongside the mirror, the connection between individuals, scenery, and artworks represent the metaphors between real and unreal.
As a wholly new curatorial practice, this show contains several highlights as follows: firstly, there are two versions of the exhibition (day and night) that coordinate with the variation of the lighting and daily lights. By broadening the site-specific nature of the artworks, we would build a more flexible and adaptable artificial landscape in place. Meanwhile, upon the stage at the entrance, by performance, workshops and artist interviews, etc., we endeavour to produce an uncharacterized concept of space. Moreover, through purely random and spontaneous activities led by staff, we would further discuss the interconnection between contemporary art and us with the audience. In virtue of the exhibition setting, the presence and motion of the individual become a part of the show, rendering it a more fluid site.
In Collaboration with: