On the afternoon of July 29, the exhibition “Port and Image III: The Echo of the Port” was opened at the China Port Museum. This exhibition, starting from the artist’s appointment practice, reflected on the changes of the “port” as a space for geographical, transportation and cultural production in China’s modern and modern history.
“Port and Image” is a series of exhibitions planned by the China Port Museum, co-sponsored by the China Port Museum and the visual art researcher and curator He Yining in 2016. Its original intention is to explore the real environment of the development of China’s port region in the context of global economic integration, as well as different issues derived from the spatial relationship between the port and the city, through the appointment of artists to carry out photography and the practice of related media. By 2022, the “Port and Image” program has successively appointed 21 artists to create works in 20 port cities and ports (regions) in China and Japan. In addition to the biennial exhibition and publication plan of the China Port Museum, the program has continued to focus on port-related culture and creative practices in the past six years with the help of response and discussion from a wide range of media and relevant research institutions, On the other hand, constantly reflect and expand the direction and logic of appointment. At the opening ceremony, the organizer of the China Port Museum reappointed He Yining as the curator of the fourth “Port and Image” program. This is also a new form of China Port Museum’s cooperation with social curators to entrust artists with thematic creation. It is a museum innovation of knowledge production, and also a specific practice of “participatory” museums.
The exhibition and publication of this issue focus on the historical and current dialogue of port cities (regions), which is carried out in two time and space frames separated by a hundred years. First, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, when China faced the colonial expansion of the imperialist powers represented by Britain, the trading ports, as the product of the shaping of the modern Chinese treaty system, became the node of China’s modern transportation infrastructure network, It also has relations with the broader semi-colonial and semi-feudal social structure, the expansion of shipping and railway systems and nationalism; Second, at the beginning of the 21st century, under the formulation of opening measures such as the “the Belt and Road” initiative and the “Free Trade Port” agreement, port cities (regions), as the core of a new round of transportation infrastructure, will connect regional, national and global trade by updating the economy and regional culture.
In recent years, the China Port Museum has carried out in-depth exploration and display of port culture from different dimensions, constantly creating and extending the brand of port culture, and expanded cross-border cooperation with other fields such as mass culture, urban literature, contemporary art, etc. through activities such as “port and image”, “port and poetry”, “port and folk songs”, “port and sculpture”, so that citizens have a sense of temperature and sense of belonging to the “port” concept transformation. In the future, the China Port Museum will also cooperate with artists from different fields, independent curators from different backgrounds, and cultural and art institutions in various forms to build a diverse and dynamic platform to offer new art and cultural forms to the general public in the process of innovation and integration.
The exhibition will last from July 29 to October 9 and will be open to the public for free. On the opening day, the museum opened at night. In order to let the audience hear the story behind these photos, a curatorial exhibition and creative sharing meeting was held after the opening ceremony. The exhibition site also held a public day tour and shared online by live broadcast.