A huge thank you to the team at the A4 residency in Chengdu. This was an amazing endeavor, facilitating ways our different art communities can address environmental challenges in meaningful ways. It was a great experience to meet and learn from other artists from around China Europe Asia and Africa .
This blog takes a quick glance at the workshops and recording days for the Chengdu Tree Stories on video with links to other work done during this residency .
The six week residency began with a studio visit on day 1 where many visitors came to see work by different artists. We chatted about the different Tree Stories on video and then we viewed a selection of tree stories . Many of these visitors came to the workshops and recordings in the following weeks to give their own tree stories on video.
For the first two workshop (Sept 10thand 14th) It was lovely to meet born and bred Chengdu people and get a sense of their pace of life and how they can tap into the natural world.
With a couple of Tree Story tellers 冯洁Jane and Xia Yue 夏宇 , Xia Yue arrived with a beautifully tree painted on her face.
The second workshop we had a special visit with field researcher Dr Jun Hu who is Plant Hunter and who shared some of his discoveries in far flung isolated areas.
The third workshop and recording day (Oct 4th ) was special , meeting different people with diverse connections to trees from working in areas of mental health to excavating past memories. We need to spend more time in outdoor natural spaces.
‘Leaf Story’ was the last workshop (Oct 6th) where we explored stories that linked to a specific leaf which we then painted. The workshop took place on the outdoor balcony of the elevated location of café Lobang surrounded by trees . It was as if we were suspended in the overstory. This workshop had friends of Songtsam participating along with some hikers in the group.
With Tree Story Teller Jessica and behind on the LED screen is Tree Story # 80 ‘Fairy Ash’ by Sasha Sykes
During the CPI Festival 30/9-13/10 at Luxelakes , a selection of Tree Stories from Chengdu (2024) and Tree Stories from the Carlow Garden Festival (2023) were screened on a large outdoor LED screen. It was great to see finally tree stories from Ireland and China together on the same large screen.
Towards the end of my stay in Chengdu I began painting a few canvasses in response to some of the tree stories , ‘Tall’ is a reference to Dr Hu’s telling of the recent discovery (2023) of the tallest Tree in Asia located in a deep gorge in the Tibetan plateau. ‘Plant Hunters’ is an unusual term but I like the reference to refocusing on rare plants and their historical and ecological significance. The unfinished painting ‘Bamboo‘ evokes memories of taking the day off , jumping on a train and taking a lovely solitary walk in Bujinlin 布金林 near Fuhusi temple 伏虎寺 at the foot of Ermeishan mountain. Many thanks to Tree Story teller Wei Zhen （魏震） for this recommendation .
A huge thank you to the hardworking video Team Xiao Qin 晓琴 and Chen Yiyang 陈优扬 for the excellent work on recording and editing.
Special thanks to all the management at A4 residence especially Liyuan Cai , Yi Wei Ting , Jody, Wong Man Sha , and Li Yueqi and the team of very helpful and flexible assistants who worked hard throughout the programme and the CPI art festival especially Xin Yiren (任昕怡) Shi Rui (诗睿) and Lois .
Before the end of the year these videos will be uploaded gradually to the website the Memory Palace of Tree Stories
With Artists Xianjie Wang( and daughter)， Jiawen Hou, Director of A4 Art Residency Centre Liyuan Cai , Saga Um , Myself， Jun Homma, Ren Han and Greta Magar
A final thank you to my lovely flat mates for their companionship , to performance artist Lisa Hinterreithner (Austria) who also contributed a Tree Story #101, artist Saga Um (Iceland) and designer Liucija Kvašytė (Lithuania)
Here are links to the other artists work during the CPI festival
Art Practices relating to sustainability that particularly resonated with me include:
Marc Lee （Swiss） coded three different platforms i Naturalist, Red List and Google Earth for a special experience identifying plants animals insects that you photograph allowing you to discover how relatively endangered they are and similar identified species near the area.
Studio Korinsky brothers Carl and Abel designed a fire installation which reflects current pollution levels in cities worldwide.
Saga Um’s paper installation using recycled books through the origami folds of future telling.
Hou Jiawen and Wang Xianjie’s Taste of Water , an interactive piece of where people add specific flavors to sparkling water and then tie the cup to your hand so it travels with you mixing according to your actions and decisions to move. I personally see this work as an exploration of the refillable economies which need to be developed.
There are many amazing artists on this group with more information in the links above .