Press Release
2005 Long March Discourse

The Long March has continuously been unfolding its unique thinking and methodology internationally, through exhibitions, presentations, and lectures. The year 2005 marked a phenomenal year for the Long March internationally, including the curating of the Chinese presentation at the International Biennale of Contemporary Art, Prague and the Yokohama Triennale, Japan, as well as the curating of the display of the Long March Project – The Great Survey of Papercuttings in Yanchuan County at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Additionally, Long March director, Lu Jie, has been traveling continuously over the past year, presenting the latest developments of the Long March internationally, including the latest developments regarding the ideas of visual economy, linking art together with social organizations and developments.

Situations Conference – The Wrong Place: Rethinking Context in Contemporary Art
Bristol Zoo
February 3 – 5, 2005

The conference concentrated on the notion of the 'wrong place', as proposed by Miwon Kwon in her significant study, One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity. Kwon proposes that, "It seems historically inevitable that we will leave behind the nostalgic notion of a site and identity as essentially bound to the physical actualities of place." Taking on this new theorisation of place, the conference asked: what is the significance of context in a biennial of contemporary art and to whom; do the specifics of location override the specifics of art work; has site-specificity been replaced by context-specificity; what kinds of new approach have been developed to address the issue of itinerancy (artists as temporary visitors) or is parachuting artists into given situations a positive outcome of the globalisation of art production? The conference included presentation by Alex Coles, Dan Hicks, Ewen Macdonald, Declan MacGonagle, Susan Norrie, and Doris Salcedo.

Lu Jie’s presentation examined the ideas of context through notions of the local(e) and international(e), examining the importance of the local both as a constraint on and as a driving force for globalization of visual culture.

Public Art In(ter)ventions – Fly with Me to Another World
Chiang Mai, Thailand
February 17 – 20, 2005

Directly following, the Long March made its first stop in Thailand, participating in the Public Art In(ter)ventions Conference in Thailand. The symposium was set up to examine and discuss the possibilities and questions raised by alternative frameworks offered by contemporary art, using the Fly With Me to Another World Project, organized by Thai artist Navin Rawanchaikul, as a case study. In attendance were leading art professionals as well as social workers and academics, examining the wider implications that contemporary art offers in understanding our relationship to society and individual.

http://www.longmarchspace.com/english/e-discourse69.htm

The Millennium Dialogue
Second Beijing International New Media Arts Exhibition and Symposium
In the Line of Flight – Transcending Urban Landscapes
May 31 – June 2, 2005

The exhibition and academic symposium of the second International New Media Arts Exhibition and Symposium, organized by the New Millennium Art Gallery (Beijing) and Tsinghua University (Beijing), focused on the artistic production and responses to changing urban landscapes, and the growing presence of new media works that attempt to capture and alter the course of these changes. One of the charges placed upon new media art is that of interaction and social engagement. Through a presentation of the Long March project, Long March director, Lu Jie, examines the different avenues for new media art in China and the technological and sociological avenues that facilitate artistic creation.

http://newmediabeijing.org/

The Long March in Australia

AAANZ Conference – Transforming Aesthetics
July 7 – July 9, 2005

The annual Art Association of Australia and New Zealand (AAANZ) Conference entitled “Transforming Aesthetics”, held at the Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. The conference set out to explore the response of aesthetic theory to new forms of art and exhibition practice emerging in relation to politics, globalization, post-colonialism and the demise of Euro-centrism. Keynote speakers included French curator and critic, Nicolas Bourriaud, whose seminal work, “Relational Aesthetics”, served as the investigatory theme of the conference, as well as Ernst Van Alphen, Jane Taylor, Sean Cubitt, and Andrew Benjamin.

Lu Jie presented a talk entitled “Curating the International(e) and the Local(e)”, discussing the Long March project’s negotiation between local and international, as well as between artists and society.

http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/aaanz/home

Long March Visits the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, site of the 2006 Asia-Pacific Triennial.

The Long March project will be participating in the 2006 Asia-Pacific Triennial (APT) held at the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane. APT is one of the major triennial exhibitions dedicated specifically to looking at art from the Asia-Pacific region. Notable past participants of APT include, Cai Guoqing, Xu Bing, and Montien Booma. This year, the Long March will be one of 4 artists from China to participate. Long March director, Lu Jie, visited the site of the exhibition in July, presenting the Long March project to museum staff and discussing with the curators proposals for the Long March presentation.

Works by Long March artist Guo Fengyi participate at the Drawing Conference, organized by the University of New South Wales
July 15 – July 16, 2005

The drawing conference was organized by College of Fine Arts University of New South Wales professor Mike Esson. Also in attendance were artists Peter Pommerer and Mike Parr, as well as Sandy Moffat, head of drawing and painting from Glasgow School of Art. Works by Guo Fengyi from the series “Lugu Lake” made in 2002 during the Long March – A Walking Visual Display site 6 Lugu Lake a dialogue with Judy Chicago entitled “If Women Ruled the Earth?” were on display serving as a central point for dialogue regarding the connections between drawing and basics of human expression

Long March presented at the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations, Tokyo
August 22 – August 25, 2005

Long March director was invited to present a talk about global culture and national narratives in contemporary Chinese art. As Chinese art becomes ever more prevalent internationally, how do Chinese artists deal with the ruptures between tradition and modernity, individual and collective, as well as the global and the local? Since its launch in 1999, the Long March has continually investigated the borders between local and international, examining how people incorporate and understand their contemporaries through the international and local discourse of visual arts and culture.