participating work：The scars of my city (chapter 8)

Participating Artists
• Ox Warehouse (Macao)：Bianca Lei, Noah Ng, Cora Si
• Huangbian Station (Guangzhou)：Catherine Chen, Jialu Chen, Zhongjian Du, Haibin Huang, Jingbin Liu, Zhiyong Li；
• Hantoo Art Group (Taiwan)：Lai Hsin-Lung, Yang Jen-Ming, Lu Hsien-Ming, Chang-Ling
Producer：Gigi Lee (Macao)
Curator：Huangbian Station (Guangzhou), Hantoo Art Group (Taiwan)

Artistic exchange brings different cultures closer, fostering comparison, integration and clashing dynamics, before being transformed into new formats and contents. This act of exchange is interpreted as “interchange”. By exchanging activities artists put forward their own ideas, concepts and experiences, while absorbing others’, thus developing into new forms after resolving processes of integration, reaction and transformation. If biological species do exchange and transformation for survival, exchange and transformation in the realm of art can be seen as an evolutionary tool, for adapting in order to survive.

Macao, Guangzhou and Taiwan are three regions marked by frequent inter-exchanges, with each having its own artistic trends and development. In the last decade, the growth of independent art spaces in the three regions has become a topical issue begging exploration, as their appearance is closely associated with official cultural policies and public demand.

This time, the trans-regional exchange programme, started by Ox Warehouse and Huangbian Station, has invited representative arts groups from Taiwan to study how independent art spaces and groups keep adapting to social changes for a better survival chance. Representatives of artists have also been invited to discuss the matter, under the theme “Evolution of independent art spaces”, while showing the audience how they keep improving, indeed adapting to survive.

“Theory of Evolution: Art Spaces Exchange Programme” is organised by Ox Warehouse and sponsored by the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Macao and Macau Foundation; the “Theory of Evolution for Art Spaces: Forum and Exhibition” is jointly curated by Guangzhou’s Huangbian Station and Taiwan’s Hantoo Art Group, in a production by Gigi Lee, a Macao artist and curator. The Forum & Exhibition is an art-spaces-exchange event at Ox Warehouse, attended by various art groups and artists from different regions, with the aim to explore the respective artistic ecologies and topics of concern, beside exchanging and sharing experience and ideas.

related link：Ox warehouse