Art organisation visit

Talbot Rice Gallery

Qiu Zhijie (b. 1969 Zhangzhou, China)

A series of ink-paintings and installations. Qiu’s artworks are based on traditional landscape paintings, with the Art of War and self-created place names written on them, reminiscent of treasure maps or maps used in ancient warfare. Among them are some contrasting English translations, which need to be illuminated by a laser pen to appear. The conflict between the ink-painting and the English words makes the artworks intriguing.

Nira Pereg (b. 1969 Tel Aviv, Israel)

Nira’s multi-channel video installations are anchored in a documentary practice that both reveals and questions conflicting behavioural protocols that co-exist in spaces of geopolitical, religious, ideological and ethical significance.The officers with guns in the film show a strong military color. There is no soundtrack in the background, only the sound of people’s activities, and the atmosphere makes me disturbed.

Lara Favaretto (b. 1973 Treviso, Italy)

The exhibition hosts a huge bookcase displaying 2,488 unwanted books. Each book contains a folded image from the artist’s archive, loosely placed between the pages. During the exhibition, visitors are invited to leaf through the books and take away one of their choosing. The bookcase is like a miniature library. It dismantled by viewers over time and redistributes the sum of its parts to the bookshelves in people’s homes.

This gallery has established a cooperative partnership with the University of Edinburgh. As an art institution, it undertakes important social responsibilities and educational significance. The three artists of the exhibitions are from different countries and present works with different ways and faces. In my opinion, the similarity is that they have chosen their culture and environment as the theme of their creation. They record their life experiences, and bring together different culture concepts and knowledge systems to propose unique worldviews.