Differences without Separation - A travelling talk between Chen Zhen and Ken Lum, 2000

Background

The idea of a cooperative project between Chen Zhen and Ken Lum began in the context of an encounter mediated by the distinguished curator and writer Hou Hanru. In the course of this initial meeting, it became increasingly evident that the differences between Chen and Lum, while considerable, would paradoxically contribute to a fuller appreciation of their mutual Chinese identities. The differences between them were causes for greater closeness and not separation. As (globalization takes place, not least of all within the domain of cultures, disseminating all cultures to every other culture and in turn engendering endless ironies of historical and political dimension, the difference of a Shanghai born artist from a Vancouver born artist also abounds in rich and manifold ironies.

Artists

Chen Zhen is from Shanghai but now resides in Paris. Even here, in this simple announcement, there is irony. Shanghai was an invention of the Europeans, born about the period Paris was also remaking itself as the quintessential 19th century cosmopolitan. Paris was and remains a model and paradigm for many cities in the world, including the of times referred to "Paris of the Orient", Shanghai. Ken Lum is from Vancouver, a city also founded in the 19th century and one which was demographically multi-racial at the inception of its constitution. The moniker for Vancouver is "Lotus-land", a reference to its beauty but also its casual and silken lifestyle. But, of course, the lotus is an important symbol within the lore of Chinese garden nomenclature.

Concept

These are just some of the ironies that cross-reference many apparently disparate situations. In working together, Chen Zhen and Ken Lum hope to uncover many more connections in their quest to explore the meaning or even the meaningless of what it says to be "Chinese". In this age of globalization where the presence of the absent other is always in mind, Chen Zhen and Ken Lum are two artists whose family roots in China reveal widely differing circuits that land each of them in respectively in Europe and in North America. As such their views on Western culture and contemporary art are often recipes for contretemps. More importantly, at root is a deep desire to understand the shock of how it is that one can have such views that are so divergent from the other and yet have so many parallels between them. Perhaps the shocks experienced in speaking one to the other are really not misrecognitions at all but owe something to their commonality in starting from one place that has led to, through different circumstances, to their different histories. Chen Zhen and Ken Lum also recognize that within the scope of Chinese thought, such differences can be accommodated in terms of understanding Chineseness.

This is certainly the case when one examines the breadth of the Chinese diaspora over the globe, which has become in many ways the universal reminder of alterity. The chinese restaurant, for example, is found everywhere and it is never simply a chinese restaurant but a convergence of Chineseness with whatever is the local national terms. Such questions and contradictions are at the core of the project of Chen Zhen and Ken Lum.

Execution

The project would include three trips, one to Paris, France where Chen Zhen resides in the Asian area of the city; one to Vancouver, a city transformed by massive immigration from Hong Kong and China; and one to China in a traversal from south to north in which Chen Zhen and Ken Lum will wrestle the values they experience with the values they believed. In all, this project would consume from 6 to 8 weeks. During the trips, Chen Zhen and Ken Lum will continue to develop their conversation, but in more concrete terms, perhaps as a kind of commentary that mimics travelogue shows. The conversation must take shape within the structure of an artistic record, be it video, photography, collected materials, drawings, etc. All the materials will be put together towards a book publication. Finally, a fully fleshed out collaborative exhibition would punctuate the project.