点废成绿 Greening the Beige (GtB) is an eco-minded arts collective and not-for-profit community network dedicated to nurturing awareness of environmental issues. 点废成绿 GtB promotes and celebrates earth friendly artists and organizations in Beijing.
"Why are we being forced to choose between the economy and the environment? We tend to forget that without an environment we would not have an economy, as everything we consume and I mean everything comes from our environment."
~ Franke James (contemporary artist, photographer, writer)
Beijing's landfills are getting full fast! Reduce the "trash" you throw away by purchasing products with minimal packaging. Look for reusable, recyclable, and biodegrable items and remember to carry your reusable shopping bags!
CITY WEEKEND BEIJING SAYS:
Real life stories rarely flow in neatly packaged arcs, outside the constructed narratives of films or books. Most events happen in disjointed jags, starts and fits, and this clunky sense of time and place comes through in Galleria Continua's latest group exhibition, Rem(a)inders.
The show, taking its title from the grammatical combination of "reminders" and "remainders," aims to explore the effects of the current culture of consumption on the present and future. It gently pushes the viewer to wonder whether garbage is going to be all later generations think of when they consider our small slice of human history.
Most pieces in the exhibit are large installation works, and since they are coming from different artists working in a variety of mediums, there is little continuity between them, lending a sense of disconnectedness to the exhibit as a whole.
At the entrance of the gallery, a serene Buddha sits atop a pile of old clothes and other bits of trash so high it dwarfs anyone standing beside it. The left hand side of the large exhibition space is covered in a pool of black bits. Closer inspection reveals chopped up bicycle parts and rubber tires.
A tree with plastic leaves dominates the center of the room, while large trunks of cut wood lie scattered along the far wall. A mouth made of the tongues of old shoes gapes from the right. The second and third floors of the gallery are occupied by a video installation, a giant Michelin-man type figure wrapped together from old bike tires, and framed paintings of Chinese dinnerware that hang over a swathe of smashed white plates.
The visual disjunct is echoed in a contributing artists list that includes big names in the contemporary art scene like Ai Weiwei, Liu Jianhua, Sun Yuan, Peng Yu, Zhuang Hui and Dan'er, alongside international names including Subodh Gupta, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Nari Ward.
Though strikingly different, each piece poses the same question:
What story will future generations construct about us when all we've given them is trash to work with?
DETAILS
What: Rem(a)inders
Where: Galleria Continua
When: through Aug. 28
More Links ---> http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/beijing/events/64250/
