A Long March Glossary

1) a process of movement through space, time, or thought without a fixed beginning or end, particularly one that involves excessive hardship or multiple transformations; 2) short form of "The Long March: A Walking Visual Display," a series of activities designed to interrogate Chinese visual culture and revolutionary memory, circa 2002; 3) an historic event in which Mao Zedong led a flailing Red Army over six thousand miles from their base in Ruijin, Jiangxi province to Yan'an, Shaanxi province, simultaneously suffering tremendous casualties and developing the ideological and organizational structures which would come to serve as the basis of the People's Republic of China.

1) one who partakes of a Long March involving him/herself alone or in cooperation with others. 2) a member of the artistic, curatorial, or documentary teams of "The Long March: A Walking Visual Display."

A curatorial and organizational praxis that: a) stresses adaptation to local and temporal circumstances; b) continues to seek the implementation of its aims particularly in the face of seemingly insurmountable setbacks; c) sees no boundary between work and leisure or theory and reality; d) seeks a dialogue with history through space, believing that space has memory.

A particularly tenacious adherent to the Long March Methodology, either in the course of "The Long March: A Walking Visual Display" or elsewhere.

Linguistically articulated dialogue, debate, or ideas arising during, as a result of, or in relation to "The Long March: A Walking Visual Display." Examples include: the proceedings of the Long March curatorial symposium in Zunyi (August 8-10, 2002); an article published in a Chinese newspaper about a Long March Event in Kunming; a lunchtime conversation among residents of Maotai about the Long March Event in which they were participating; an idea that occurs to an artist, or viewer as a result of their participation in or knowledge of The Long March.

Material objects created during or incorporated into "The Long March: A Walking Visual Display." (Key to this concept is the non-distinction between "artworks" created by "artists" selected for formal participation and objects which enter the collective consciousness of The Long March by happenstance.)

Objects, ideas, or images left along the route of "The Long March: A Walking Visual Display." Examples include an installation work by Feng Qianyu left as a bridge across a river in Guangxi province, the countless Long March postcards, stickers and T-shirts distributed to people encountered on the march, and images left in the collective memories of communities in which Long March Events occurred.

A happening along the route of "The Long March: A Walking Visual Display," either premeditated or spontaneous. Completed temporally, the event continues indefinitely to condition the memory as well as the progress The Long March.

Different from a typical artistic installation in that its creator is a scholar, critic, or curator as opposed to an artist in the traditional sense, it seeks directly to address issues or themes that have arisen during The Long March in visual form. Analogous to a visual artist's written statement, it seeks to give the power of visual language to thinkers generally confined to written language.

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