Wu Chi-Tsung is interested in how images are made and seen. Landscape, nature and the urban environment feature in his work and the themes are central to the national Recalibrate programme.
Although his early influences come from painting, specifically Eastern shan sui works and Western Watercolour landscapes, his powerful work is often realised through video, photography, installation and performance.
Information taken from www.edpien.com.
Ed Pien is a Canadian artist based in Toronto. He has been making art for over early 30 years. Born in Taipei, Taiwan, he immigrated to Canada with his family at the age of eleven.
Pien has shown extensively, both nationally and internationally, in venues that include the Drawing Centre, NYC: the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; The Canadian Culture Centre in Paris; The Goethe Institute in Berlin; The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; The Art Gallery of Ontario; Musée des beaux arts, Montreal; Musée d’art contemporain, Montreal; Songzhuang Art Centre, Beijing; the National Art Gallery of Canada; as well as Oboro. He has participated in the 2000 and 2002 Montreal Biennales; the 18th Edition of the Sydney Biennale, “Oh Canada”, at MASS MoCA. Pien also presented work at the 5th Edition of the Moscow Biennale, and the Beijing International Art Biennale. The Corridor of Rain is featured at the Curitiba Biennial, in Brazil till February 2018.
His work is collected widely and include FRAC Lorraine, Metz, France; Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; The National Art Gallery of Canada; Art Gallery of Ontario; Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal. Musée des beaux arts, Montreal; Mendel Art Gallery; Weatherspoon Art Museum, University Of North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina; as well as other institutions and private collections. Pien teaches part-time at the University of Toronto.
Lancaster’s historic squares and streets become the backdrop for original work commissioned through the Lancaster Chinese Arts Festival’s Artists Residency programme.
Gale Chen’s work responds to the unique spaces of Lancaster’s city centre and central to her work is her exploration of both British and Chinese traditions of storytelling through fabric and embroidery.
Lancaster’s history is retold through events that have shaped the city and its people over the centuries on Chinese style embroidered plaques and decorative roses adorning the tree lined avenue as Gale Chen’s contribution to the festival.
Gale Chen’s work responds to the unique spaces of Lancaster’s city centre and central to her work is her exploration of both British and Chinese traditions of storytelling through fabric and embroidery.
Lancaster’s history is retold through events that have shaped the city and its people over the centuries on Chinese style embroidered plaques and decorative roses adorning the tree lined avenue as Gale Chen’s contribution to the festival.
Gale Chen is an artist based in Ambleside, Cumbria.
Artist’s Statement
As part of Lancaster Chinese New Year Festival 2016, artist Pui Lee is doing a residency at Lancaster City Museum, where she will be creating an exciting new artwork for exhibition as well as delivering a series of creative workshops for members of the public. (28th January – 31st January 2016).
“After doing research, I was initially inspired by this Chinese folk tale that I found called, ‘Flower Dragon’. [See story] Maybe not many people know of it but I think that there are some important lessons to be learned from it. China has such a rich and diverse culture dating over thousands of years – and this project is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate that!” says the artist.
“I was keen that the project also made references to local themes as well as to promote cultural diversity. I will be using the residency as an open workspace to create a beautiful and plentiful garden-inspired installation, which will get exhibited at a later date. …I am visualising an environment full of vitality and promise – a site of peace and wonder, which cultivates goodness and happily-ever-afters!”
The installation will feature elements from the folk tale including giant oversized flowers (-including the famous Lancaster Rose), 3 golden necklaces with sparkling jewels, the golden dragon and a kaleidoscope of butterflies. The overall artwork will contain a mixture of both 3D and 2D pieces, which will get arranged into the final exhibition space. Pieces from the installation will also appear at the carnival day on Sunday 31st January as well.
Members of the public are also invited to join in all the fun and help create parts of the installation at the family-friendly drop-in workshops on Saturday 30th January 2016 at:
All materials will be provided. All welcome.
Wu Chi-Tsung is interested in how images are made and seen. Landscape, nature and the urban environment feature in his work and the themes are central to the national Recalibrate
programme. Although his early influences come from painting, specifically Eastern shan shui works and Western watercolour landscapes, his powerful work is often realised through video, photography, installation and performance.
The Lancaster edition of Recalibrate is a unique split-site exhibition between Peter Scott Gallery and the dramatic grade II listed gallery at The Storey that will present artworks that
include the all-encompassing installation Crystal City 004 (a newly commissioned work for Recalibrate), cyanotypes from the Wrinkled Textures series and several examples from Wu Chi-Tsung’s elegant landscape and still life video works.
The Peter Scott Gallery will also be exhibiting a display of their Chinese art collection alongside the Recalibrate exhibition.
Free entry to both sites.
Recalibrate partners: Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (Manchester), Live at LICA and The Storey (Lancaster), Site Gallery (Sheffield)
Sponsored by: Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture
Supported by: Arts Council England and NICE
The exhibition – Memento – by Ed Pien, is a walk-through environment created from knotted ropes, paper-cut silhouettes, video projections, rotating mirrors, sand-bags, shadows, and sound. In the dim light, the visitor plunges into another world, navigating their way amidst the shadows beneath a rope net canopy, while projected images spin around the gallery walls.
Memento was developed from his research into the plight of illegal immigrants who take great risks in the hope of achieving a better life. These people often have to live ‘ghost-like’, hidden from society, such as the Chinese cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay, the ‘Faujis’ from India living in the UK without identities, and the thousands of North Africans who try to cross the Mediterranean in small boats, some of whom perish on the way.
Memento is a continuation of Pien’s interest in the otherworldly, invisibility, disappearance, and journeys. It poignantly reflects on the displaced, forgotten and unseen, yet remains poetically open-ended.
Ed Pien was born in Taiwan and moved to Canada aged 11. He has exhibited internationally including the Drawing Centre, New York; La Biennale de Montreal; Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico City; plAAy, Blackburn (UK); The Goethe Institute, Berlin; and Himalya Art Gallery, Chongqing, China.
Memento was commissioned by the Chinese Art Centre in Manchester and supported by the Hua Xian Chinese Society.
‘East’ a pop-up art exhibition by artists of East Asian heritage from different backgrounds. Working together, they will transform a space from ordinary retail shop to a new creative space in which you can explore.
Across two weeks, artists will interact with the space – exhibiting work and creating new original pieces or respond to others work.
Nothing is planned and the space will evolve organically with each intervention by an artist.
Each invited artist will be unveiled in the shop front window with a description of their work as the project proceeds.