IMAGINING A POST-REVOLUTIONARY WORLD: FROM LITTLE MOVEMENTS TO WILD GRASS

Α talk by Liu Ding and Carol Yinghua Lu, curators of the upcoming 19th Istanbul Biennial

Thursday 3 December | 20:00

Screening Room | Mezzanine

ΕΜΣΤ presents a talk by Liu Ding and Carol Yinghua Lu, curators of the upcoming 19th Istanbul Biennial (2027), on Thursday, 3 December, at 20:00. 

The talk will be introduced by Katerina Gregos, Artistic Director of ΕΜΣΤ, and will commence with opening remarks by Kevser Güler, Director of the Istanbul Biennial.

The co-curators will outline the curatorial concept and organisation process of Wild Grass: Our Lives, the 8th Yokohama Triennale (2024), with a special focus on a section of the exhibition which featured the undercurrents of activist cultural practices emerging simultaneously through East Asia over the past decades. Although located in different cities and regions of East Asia, people engaged in these practices share values such as those of autonomy, self-governance, anti-consumption and cooperation. They create shared spaces that are independent of the logic of capitalism and the dominant social order. Their aim is to establish new social relationships, which are not driven by profit or the influence of power. As such, they alleviate the anxieties of people in repressive social structures, liberate daily life, create new social relationships, emphasise non-exploitative labour, and open up imaginative possibilities within repressive social structures. They rebuild life directly out of what already exists, taking the lead in building a post-revolutionary world. This vision can be traced to Little Movements: Self-practice in Contemporary Art, an exhibition they co-curated in 2010, which also proposed an imaginary of the art system as a constellation of equal practices, as opposed to a structure of power. Both projects manifest Ding and Yingua Lu’s belief in the agency of art in re-imagining our reality, as well as their interest in art as an intellectual and humanistic practice inseparably linked to reality. 

BIOGRAPHIES

Liu Ding and Carol Yinghua Lu have worked collaboratively as a research and curatorial team since 2007. They were the artistic directors for the 8th Yokohama Triennale (2024). They have curated many shows, including: Trans-Southeast Asia Triennial: Sounds as Silence: The Academic Value of Life (2021), Anren Biennale: Crossroads (2017), Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale (2012), Little Movements: Self-practice in Contemporary Art I\II\III (2011 in OCAT Shenzhen, China; 2013 in MUSEION, Bolzano, Italy and, 2015 in ACC, Gwangju, Korea), and Liberation (2010). Since 2013, they have curated a series of thematic and solo exhibitions based on their ongoing research on the resonance of socialist realism in the historical formation of contemporary art in China. 

Liu Ding is an artist and a curator based in Beijing. His artistic and curatorial practice focuses on multiple viewpoints and modes of description in exploring a trajectory of discursive thought that connects the historical and the contemporary. His work seeks to broaden possibilities for a richer understanding of the historical narrative of subjectivity within Chinese art.  

Liu Ding has participated in biennales including: Busan Biennale (2018), Yinchuan Biennale (2018), Istanbul Biennial (2015), Asia Pacific Triennial (2015), Prospect 3 New Orleans (2014), Shanghai Biennale (2014), Taipei Biennial (2012), Chinese Pavilion, 53rd Venice Biennial (2009), Media City Seoul (2008) and Guangzhou Triennale (2005). Since 2018, he has been teaching exhibition display as a visiting professor at NABA Milan. His work has been shown at numerous major art institutions. 

Carol Yinghua Lu is an art historian and curator with a Doctorate in art history from University of Melbourne, currently the director of the Beijing Inside-Out Art Museum. She has served as artistic director and senior curator of OCAT, Shenzhen (2012-2015), guest curator at Museion, Bolzano (2013) and was China researcher for the Asia Art Archive (2005-2007). She has contributed to various artist monographs, catalogues and art journals, including e-flux, frieze, Exhibitionist, Yishu, Flash Art, and Contemporary among others. She was a contributing editor for frieze magazine (2008-2018), Chief Editor for the Chinese edition of Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (2012-2013), as well as co-founder and co-editor of Contemporary Art and Investment magazine (2007-2010). She received the Yishu Award for Critical Writing and Curating in Contemporary Chinese Art (2016) and was the recipient of the ARIAH (Association of Research Institute in Art History) East Asia Fellowship (2017) and a visiting fellow in the Asia-Pacific Fellowship Program at the Tate Research Centre (2013).