Panel
5. Transmitting Knowledges: Institutions, Objects and Practices
In a context that limits public speech and writing, writing in the public domain can be both private and public. Those who are willing to explore and to decipher can gain access to the inner layer of texts’ meaning. If there is trust, more daring writing will be shared within a small circle. I’m interested in the field in-between, where the writing is beyond being private but still ambiguous, when the text welcomes intervention in different directions and has the momentum to have more public agency. That is to say, finishing a text is not the end of an artistic act. This paper aims to shed light on artistic and curatorial concerns about working with writing to make things public by drawing on my observations of and participation in several projects where the acts of writing play differently. Artists and curators can play various roles in the process, such as storytellers, organisers, companions to unsolvable problems, mental detectives, and so on. They can also write off the authorship and speak with/for a wider public. This is a contested and delicate ground. For some, writing is healing, out of the need to remember, to mourn and to share. Perhaps more people, like my grandmother, choose not to write because recounting histories adds to their pain. We shall not attach too much importance to writing, while being patient and alert to the moment that is awakened and strengthened by writing.
Sipei Lu
Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, China