A New Theory on Species | 物种新论
Date: 2022.12.03-2023.3.03
Location: Dawanshiju, Shenzhen, China
Co-organizers: Urbanism Architecture Bi-city Biennale(UABB), Pingshan District
Curator: Jo WEI, NAN Zhaoxu
Artists：Robert ZHAO Renhui, TAN Bin, YUAN Ye
日期：2022年12月3日-2023年3月3日
地点：大万世居，深圳，中国
主办：第九届深港城市建筑双城双年展分展场“大万不插电”
策展人：魏颖、南兆旭
艺术家： 赵仁辉、谭彬、袁野
Curatorial Text | 展览前言
From ancient times to the present, human understanding of other species has undergone continuous shifts in perspective — at times in awe, at others with equal recognition, and still more under condescending eyes. Throughout many of history’s chapters — such as pre-modernity with ancient China and the European Middle Ages, the natural history movement led by Aristotle and Linnaeus’s respective ladder and tree of life, the modern technological period featuring Margulis’s endosymbiosis and Gaia hypothesis, and the future imagination of a new nature and artificiality triggered by synthetic biology in rapid advance — the conceptualization of what species are has witnessed constant transition in tandem with the changes found in different civilizations, eras, and technology. No longer are things merely about biology but also epistemology. Integrating the understanding of species into the creation of art and specifically exploring regional facets is, therefore, what A New Theory on Species is all about.
This project takes place in a characteristic Hakka settlement in the extremely species-rich Pingshan District, Shenzhen. The exhibition presents thoughts on the relationship between humans and other species from three different perspectives through three artists and their works. In Tan Bin’s narrative images, the mythic beasts in the Classic of Mountains and Seas represent the awe-stricken, pre-modern human imagination of other species. His work Zhuanxu’s Nightmare uses modern X-ray technology to evolve the ever-developing schema of the Ming-dynasty version of the classic, completing the connection between ancient mythology and modern technology. Zhao Renhui’s A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the World appears as a catalog of guides that strictly follow natural history norms, but it is actually a fictional story about human intervention in other species. These scenarios take place in the present or in the near future, where some species have to make regressions (rather than evolutions) in order to adapt to their environment, while others are born solely because of human need. Yuan Ye, an artist who grew up in Shenzhen, was commissioned to create a work about the flora around Dawan Former Residence, naming the piece Dawan Plant Identification Manual. Her vision is to look at the non-animate species with eyes that view these plants as equals rather than as means to an end. By suggesting the consistency between humans and other species at the level of material space, there exists a confirmation of the authenticity of life. After the exhibition, a series of field works and lecture activities about the natural environment and species’ conceptualization in Shenzhen and throughout all southern China will be hosted by the space both on and offline.
从远古到现今，人类对于其他物种的认识都在坐标轴中不断变换——时而敬畏、时而平等、时而俯视 ——从中国的上古时期到欧洲的中世纪的前现代理解层面、从亚里士多德的阶梯结构和林奈的树状结构的博物学层面理解，到马古利斯的内共生学说和盖娅假说的现代科技理解层面、又包括如今突飞猛进的合成生物学所引发的关于新的“自然”和“人工”的未来想象层面。“物种”这一概念随着不同的文明、时代和技术水平的变化而在不断跃迁。这不仅仅是简单的生物学问题，也是认识论问题。如何将对于物种的理解融于艺术创作之中，并针对不同地域有特定的探索，是“物种新论”想要进行的尝试。
本次项目发生在物种极为繁茂的深圳坪山，一座极具风格的客家聚落空间中。展览从三位艺术家的作品入手，以三种角度来思考人与物种的关系。在谭彬的图像叙事中，《山海经》一书中的异兽形象代表了前现代时期的人类对于其他物种的想象，带有敬畏感。其作品《颛顼的噩梦》则用现代X光技术对明代以来的“山海经”图式演变，完成了介于神话和现代技术间的勾连。而赵仁辉的《世界动植物群指南》看似是一本严格遵循博物学规范的指南目录，实际却是关于人类对于其他物种干预的虚构故事，这些场景发生在当下或者不远的未来，有些物种为了适应环境不得不作出倒退（而非进化），而另一些物种则是完全因为人类的需要而诞生。生长于深圳的艺术家袁野则被委任一件关于大万世居附近的植物群像的作品《大万植物识别手册》，并在其中用“齐物”而非功能性的视角去审视它们。透过提示人类与非人类物种在空间中的一致性，她试图对生命存在的真实性进行一种确认。此外，一系列与深圳乃至华南地区的生态环境、物种认知的田野调查和讲座活动也将在这个空间和线上进行。（撰文:魏颖)
本单元属于第九届深港城市建筑双城双年展分展场“大万不插电”的特邀展，更多展览细节，请查看官方推送：【大万山海经】“物种新论” 深双特邀展
Selected Artworks | 部分作品
Photos of Scene | 现场
Publication | 出版物
Information | 相关信息
Curators
Jo Wei Jo Wei is a curator and researcher on art, science and technology, and is also the founder of the Pan Bio-art Studio(PBS). Among the list of her many curations are Bamboo as Method (2021), Quasi-Nature: Bio Art, Borderline, Laboratory (2019), Ars Electronica in Shenzhen (2019). She is also an International Adviser for the European Commission’s STARTS Prize, and the member of the International Program Committee of ISEA, as well as an editorial board member of Annual of Contemporary Art of China. She has taught on Bio Art, Eco Art in Central Academy of Fine Arts since 2016.
Nan Zhaoxu Nan Zhaoxu is a researcher of natural history in Shenzhen, having moved to the city in 1989. He is the author of Field Notes from a Natural Shenzhen and Shenzhen Natural History Encyclopedia. His work has long focused on metropolis’s niche in the natural history realm, with “local care and action” his primary motto when witnessing, recording, and protecting the local natural ecology as well as initiating and organizing series of activities centered on nature conservation.
Artists
Zhao Renhui (b.1983, works and lives in Singapore)
Singaporean visual artist Robert Zhao Renhui (b.1983) works chiefly with photography but often adopts a multi-disciplinary approach, presenting images together with documents and objects in the form of textual and media analysis, video, and photography projects. His artistic practice investigates man’s relationship with nature, utilizing convincing narratives to invoke doubts in its audience towards the concept of truth and its portrayal. His works has been exhibited globally, having held solo exhibitions in Singapore, China, Japan, Australia, and Italy, as well as participating in various biennales and photo festivals.
A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the World seeks to document and reflect on the myriad of ways in which human action and intervention are slowly altering the natural world. The guide presents a catalogue of curious creatures and life-forms that have evolved in often unexpected ways to cope with the stresses and pressures of a changed world. Other organisms documented in the installation are the results of human intervention, mutations engineered to serve various interests and purposes ranging from scientific research to the desire for ornamentation.
Tan Bin (b. 1989, works and lives in Hangzhou)
Tan’s practice is related to installation, photography, painting, site-specific, situational, text-based, and other works, with a primary bend toward the “balcony” and expressive nature of Chinese space in both public and private domains. He earned a DFA from the School of Intermedia Art of the China Academy of Art(CAA) and is currently teaching at the School of Design & Innovation, also with the CAA.
Zhuanxu’s Nightmare is a collection of X-ray images of large animals and other creatures from the Classic of Mountains and Seas. Though it solidified in the Ming dynasty, the classic itself has been hard to pin down to any genre and has continued to develop with each passing season since its conception. The collection of X-rays somewhat echoes the evolution of the work’s content as it moves from image to text, drops image altogether, and transfers the text back into a new image form. It is such a process of continuous translation that shapes the state of disorder as well as that of open text.
Yuan Ye (b. 1989, works and lives in Beijing and Shenzhen)
A graduate of the Printmaking Department of the China Academy of Art and, later, the School of Experimental Art of the China Central Academy of Fine arts, Yuan Ye grew up in Nanjing, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. Her practice focuses on the complex ecology of technology, nature, and people as she explores the entangled relationship between natural and artificial landscapes and reveals the survival of people’s fittest in this context.
Dawan Plant Identification Manual is a group of works in an ongoing series by the artist. Using the research methods of naturalists and related professional researchers as a backdrop, the work initiates an examination of the existing plants within the Dawan Former Residence complex and composes an incomplete survey file. The materials from the examination process have thus been loosely assembled into an atypical plant identification manual presented through a variety of media.
策展人
魏颖 魏颖是一位策展人和研究者，她近期的兴趣方向为科技艺术史，生命、环境、数字技术等新兴媒介与艺术结合的领域。她的实践包括展览策划、研究、写作、翻译和教学等。她担任欧盟科技艺术奖（STARTS）、ISEA等国际科技艺术项目的国际顾问/审稿人，“信睿周报”学术委员会委员、中国当代艺术年鉴编委等。
南兆旭 南兆旭，深圳自然与历史研究者，《深圳自然笔记》《深圳自然博物百科》等书的执笔者。1989 年定居深圳。长期研究深圳本土自然与历史，主张“在地关怀”，关注、记录、保护深圳的自然生态，发起和组织了一系列自然保护活动。
艺术家
赵仁辉（b.1983, 现生活、工作于新加坡）
赵仁辉以摄影进行创作，同时采用多学科方法将影像与实物并置呈现。他的作品主要探讨人类与大自然的关系、仁义与道德的课题，同时也关注人类的态度和观点如何影响我们对大自然的认知。他于全球参加展览，包括新加坡，中国，日本，澳大利亚，和意大利，也参与各地的双年展和摄影节。
作品介绍
《世界动植物指南》记录了人类干预行为对自然世界缓慢改变的无数种方式，并对此进行反思。该指南展示了一系列奇特的生物和生命形式，它们以意想不到的方式发展，以应对不断变化的世界所带来的压力。书中记载的另一些生物则是人类干预或基因改造的结果，为了满足人类从科研到装饰的不同目的。
谭彬（b.1989, 现生活、工作于杭州）
谭彬的创作实践涉及装置、摄影、绘画、现场、事件、文本等媒介领域，长期关注以“阳台”为模型的公私场域、中国空间的展演性等面向。他毕业于中国美术学院跨媒体艺术学院，获艺术学博士学位。现任教于中国美术学院创新设计学院。
作品介绍
《颛顼的噩梦》是一组透过X光看到的《山海经》中异兽生物的形象。《山海经》作为一部难以归类的经典，X光图像的重构基于自明代以来的对“山海经”图式演变，这种重构某种程度上呼应了“山海经”文本的生长过程——由图转述，图像遗失，再由述转图，正是在这种不断“翻译”的过程中成为了一种“脱序”的状态，一种开放的文本。
袁野（b.1989, 现生活、工作于北京和深圳）
袁野成长于南京、深圳和香港，其艺术实践关注技术媒介、自然和人的复合生态，探索真实自然和人造景观之间的缠绕关系，以及人在此背景下的生存境况。她先后毕业于中国美术学院版画系和中央美术学院实验艺术学院。
作品介绍
《大万植物识别手册》是艺术家持续进行的系列作品中的一组。这组作品参考了博物学家及相关专业研究者的调研方法，展开对大万世居建筑群内现存植物的考察，并梳理出不完备调查档案。考察过程中的材料松散地汇集成一部非典型性的植物识别手册，并采用多种媒介进行呈现。
第九届深港城市建筑双城双年展分展场团队
联合主策展人：刘晓都、高岩、徐宗汉（Richard Hsu）
执行策展人：李安红
策展团队成员：潘境婷,方雨卉,崔枫楠,陈子艺,陈思源,何雨晴,何梓艺,坪山美术馆团队