Aurora Norena’s Portable Garden can be seen at the 9 + 9: Mexican Notes in Chinese Notebooks and Art Videos show in 751 D-Park in Beijing. [Photo by Yang Xiaoyu/chinadaily.com.cn]
On a ready-made Chinese notebook, unfurled in an accordion form, Mexican artist Aurora Norena painted blue skies, walls and plants. Then she carved out some round holes, where she stuck various leaf samples she obtained from nature. She named the finished product Portable Garden.
"My garden is among the things I appreciate the most. The little Chinese notebook allows me to take the garden with me anywhere," explains Norena in the caption to the artwork, a piece on show at 9 + 9: Mexican Notes in Chinese Notebooks and Art Videos, a special exhibition at the ongoing 10th International Design Festival in Beijing's 751 D-Park in Beijing.
The North American country is the only foreign country represented at the annual gathering of top designers from around the world.
The 10th International Design Festival opened Friday at 751 D-Park in Beijing. [Photo by Yang Xiaoyu/chinadaily.com.cn]
Featuring 15 Mexican contemporary artists, the exhibition comprises two parts – nine pieces based on Chinese-style notebooks and nine short videos produced by female artists, said Elizabeth Ross, show curator and a participant herself.
When paying her second visit to China in 2018, the curator bought a pile of Chinese notebooks at an art material shop in downtown Beijing as souvenirs for her artist friends back home.
"Afterwards, I thought it would be just a good idea to propose them to work on them," said Ross, who then included their re-creations in Crossing the Bridge, a Mexico-China contemporary art exhibition held in 2019 in Mexico City.
Jeannette Betancourt’s Trace is on show. [Photo by Yang Xiaoyu/chinadaily.com.cn]
Painted, cut, stamped, or collaged with natural materials such as leaves and dust, the notebooks "were used as canvas by Mexican artists with their own techniques and aesthetical interest, to start a dialogue between our two cultures," the curator told China Daily Website.
Aside from Norena's Portable Garden, Jeannette Betancourt used a notebook as a medium to show the traces of dust she collected from the heavily polluted air in Mexico City and Puerto Rico's Penuelas.
Monica Dower turned a notebook into a series of drawings. The work chronicles her grandfather's journey from Europe to Oaxaca, Mexico in the 1920s and his decision to stay there for the love of the famous Tule tree, which has the stoutest trunk in the world.
Mónica Dower’s Chorzele/Oaxaca is on show. [Photo by Yang Xiaoyu/chinadaily.com.cn]
The second part of the exhibition features nine short videos, all no longer than five minutes, projected on the wall and played in a loop.
Created by prestigious female video artists, the pieces "revolve around how people's identity determines their perception of the world", according to Ross.
Ross brought to the show two of her own videos, Hand Lines 3: Sharpless and This Journey is Not a Cage, which tell of "the decision of cutting my hair to get rid of heavy issues and be determined to not get caught in a cage."
"I hope these videos will give the Chinese audience a glimpse of our reality as Mexican women, or just as women, with our worries, fears and joys," the curator said.
Ross has organized two Chinese Female Video Artists Festivals in Mexico since 2015 and is working on the third, which has been delayed by the pandemic.
"Many artists from China, such as Bu Hua and Tan Hongyu, have been showing their videos to Mexican audiences. Now it's my turn to introduce Mexican artists to Chinese audiences," she said.
Ross added her curatorial work is "a small step for bigger exchanges between China and Mexico".
The exhibit will run through Oct 8.
