When: 17th March – 5th May 2012
Where: Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham B9 4AR
£: Free
What is it?
Eastside Projects in Birmingham has two new exhibitions. The first is After Dinner Shu Fa at Cricket Pavilion, Yangjiang Group’s first solo exhibition in the UK. Yangjiang Group is an artistic group founded in 2002 by Zheng Guogu, Chen Zaiyan and Sun Qinglin in Yangjiang. Yangjiang is a large new city developed from a small ancient town situated in the south of the Guangdong province; the avant-garde region of China’s modernisation, urbanisation and globalisation.
After Dinner Shu Fa at Cricket Pavilion is a performative installation and event series. Shu fa is the Chinese art and theorem of writing, traditionally known as calligraphy. The goal of the Yangjiang Group is to rebel against the traditional situation of calligraphy in new China.
Yangjiang Group are designing and building a new large-scale artwork based on a traditional Chinese tea pavilion as the focal point of the exhibition in Eastside Projects. Visitors are invited to use the ten metre square, four metre high wooden and plastic pavilion, and can climb the first floor to view eating and calligraphy in the gallery.
The pavilion is a demountable structure and will shift function after the exhibition for its ongoing life with Grizedale Arts as it becomes a prototype cricket pavilion at Coniston Cricket Ground, in the Lake District.
The second exhibition is by Birmingham-based artist David Rowan. Pacha Kuti X is a new moving image work exploring the unknown underground sub-infrastructure of Birmingham. The name Pacha Kuti refers to an Inca apocalypse legend, a time of duality and change and roughly translates as ‘the time when the world will turn upside down’. Pacha Kuti X is the 10th End of The Known Universe according to the Inca legend.
Existing within a hidden topography Rowan redefines the dark spaces of Digbeth’s underground tunnels with customised lighting dropped into the space like alien beacons. Investigating these dark and unusual landscapes as an exploration of the absence of light, Rowan captures the slow secret environmental and architectural change occurring below.
David Rowan is an artist and photographer who lives and works in Birmingham. The new video work has been developed specifically for Eastside Projects after Rowan received the first Extra Special People exhibition award. Extra Special People is Eastside Projects’ Associates scheme, supporting the development of work, ideas, connections and careers through a programme of events, opportunities and projects.
David Rowan will present ‘Going Underground’, a subterranean double-bill selected to complement his exhibition on 18th March 2 – 5pm. This event is part of the Flatpack Festival.
More info: Visit www.eastsideprojects.org and extraspecialpeople.org.