Multispecies Clouds marks the first chapter of a three-part research-based curatorial project, “Who Owns Nature?” forthcoming at the Macalline Art Center. In this exhibition, we seek to present a metaphor for new interspecies relationships, which on the one hand, point to the networked structure of different life forms and, on the other hand, involve a global system of exchange, within which species in the Anthropocene move about through information, material, and energy. Within the “clouds”, the boundaries of species blur, effacing the distinction between the center and the periphery; hence their “identities” constantly intermingle, reshape and transform, and this interweaving process gradually evolves into a sprawling and vast open world.
Although humans often intervene on the boundary, these creative agents have their way of responding—like “the multitude” they continue to encounter, co-evolve with, align with, and confront us, sometimes intimately, other times at a distance. As anthropologist Celia Lowe notes, “Our futures lie at the junctures where forms of the human, animal, and microbe meet and where each sustains—and clouds—the limits and possibilities of the other.” Each species carries its cosmological model that transcends the limits of the senses, perceptions, and bodies, mixing organic and inorganic narratives and ultimately arriving at the metaphorical realm of animism.
The artists of Multispecies Clouds act as integrals of multispecies ethnographers and shamans who re-build these cosmological models through their interactions with plants, animals, viruses, microbes, and fungi and translating them into images, poetry, and politics. The ecstasy and illusion in Multispecies Clouds symbolize the vitality of life, implying that we hear the call of a Multiverse and respond with emotion and imagination. Here brews the sophisticated and dense“sympoietics”, which no longer focuses aesthetic attention only on what is usually considered “glamorous” but instead discovers, through visible and perceptible forms, those forms of life that are forgotten or obscured, or “translate” the stories between species, as what the tribal shamans once undertook—conjuring the energy of art here.
Participating artists: Carolina Caycedo & David de Rozas, Sergio Rojas Chaves, Sheryl Cheung, Rometti Costales, Patricia Domínguez, Jes Fan, Fei Yining, Liu Chuang, Long Pan, Uriel Orlow, Rice Brewing Sisters Club, Pamela Rosenkranz, Yi Xin Tong, Wu Chi-Yu, Trevor Yeung, Zhang Wenzhi, Zheng Mahler
Curator: Yang Beichen
[1] Liu Chuang, Untitled (Cyan), 2016. Painted bronze, 63 x 67 x 147 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Magicien Space. [2] Rice Brewing Sisters Club, Mountain Storytellers, Storytelling Mountains: A Tale Theatre (still), 2020. Single-channel HD video, color, sound, 16:16 minutes. Courtesy of the artists. [3] Patricia Domínguez, Matrix Vegetal (still), 2021—2022. Video, installation, 21:12 minutes. Commissioned by Screen City Biennial and supported by Cecilia Brunson Projects. Courtesy of the artist.
Exhibition 27 December 2022 - 16 April 2023. Macalline Art Center, 706 N. 1st St., 798 Art Zone, 2 Jiuxianqiao Rd. - 100015 Beijing (China). Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10:30am–6pm
