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ARTS NETWORK ASIA GRANT APPLICATION

Submitted by: The Arrow Factory, Beijing

April 30, 2010


1 Aims / Objective / Goals of project

Arrow Factory is an independently run, modestly sized storefront art space (10 square meters or 100 square feet) located in a small hutong alley in Beijing’s city center. Projects held in our space can be viewed from the street 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our location inside a narrow 200-year old alleyway with multi-generation households, tourist attractions, and newer apartment blocks, encapsulates the rapidly changing nature of contemporary China, as well as the tensions and conflicts that reside within the process of globalization itself. Our goal is to meaningfully engage with this transformative environment, and to explore more fully what it is to be living in this time and moment. Aimed at reaching a diverse public made up of local residents, as well as local and international art audiences, Arrow Factory's intention has been to create new avenues for artistic production in China that force a more direct encounter not only with the sphere of everyday life but with the social and political systems that inform and infiltrate urban space.

Our objective with the proposed project tentatively titled ‘Triennial’, is to produce a survey publication that comprehensively documents and reflects upon our previous three years of projects and exhibitions in printed form. This volume will serve as a valuable document for us as an organization as well as for our viewers and collaborators—those around us who have in some way or another taken part in what we do.

‘Triennial’ will act as a compendium for Arrow Factory’s activities since our inception in 2008. During a time of economic boom in the Chinese art world and globally, Arrow Factory set up shop based on the motto of ‘small gestures in specific places’ as a way of counteracting the growing spectacle of Chinese contemporary art. Our goal then and now is to present the work of contemporary artists in a context divided from the commercial interests of galleries, museums and other profit-oriented arts organizations; and to initiate opportunities for artists to engage with a concrete social and political context. The art market is a necessary component of the contemporary art world but we also believe there should be alternative value systems that are not pegged to auction prices and buying power. We believe there is power that lies in making connections between art and regular people, and in circumventing the separation between art and everyday life. The publication of ‘Triennial’ will provide lasting evidence of these ephemeral connections and low-key interventions, serving to capture a transitional moment within an ever-evolving society.

2 Brief description of project

Arrow Factory’s ‘Triennial’ publication will comprise documentary material with newly commissioned texts and interviews in a volume that acts as a comprehensive documentation and reflection of our practices over the previous 3 years. It will follow a straightforward format whereby 2-4 pages will be allotted to photos of each exhibition project and will be supplemented by commissioned texts and transcriptions of interviews and conversations. We aim to include up to three external authors; with each contributing a newly commissioned essay of approximately 2000 words, plus an introduction by the founders (approximately 1000 words), transcriptions of interviews and conversations among artists and neighbors (approximately 20,000 words), and brief project descriptions (500 words each or 10,000 words total) which would result in a bilingual publication of approximately 37,000 English words and 55,500 Chinese words.

The contributors will reflect the wide spectrum of contemporary art writing and will include scholars, curators, and critics as well as participating artists. Most will be mid-career with several being either emerging or established. Without exception, these authors will be the most important figures in the field, they will possess a firm grasp of artistic practices globally as well as in the specific context of China. The textual component of this book is vital in capturing the history of this artistic moment; therefore eschewing singular narratives in favor of multiple perspectives from a diverse range of authors. Most importantly, it is essential for us that our contributors reflect the diversity of contemporary art today.

We also plan for the ‘Triennial’ publication to be both of the moment and to able to stand the test of time. We see it as an examination into the uniqueness of our contemporary situation, and hope to capture for posterity the concrete manifestations of China’s current complex intellectual and artistic zeitgeist. In the end, we hope that the book’s structure provides a framework for diverse points of view to make a collective statement about what contemporary art is now.

In addition to photographic documentation of previous projects, transcribed conversations and short essays, we intend to invite 1 or 2 selected artists to carry out a project inside the book itself. This could take the form of a design element (frontispiece or cover) or something more subversive like a fabricated documentation of a fictional event or exhibition. These artists will be selected for their previous track record of working with printed forms, and for the strength and potential of their proposed project.

The book will also feature a brief timeline/chronology showing all of the exhibitions and events that have taken place at Arrow Factory since its inception in April 2008.


3 Methodology / Implementation of project

We view this book project in the same way we would any other project carried out by Arrow Factory, that is, to strive for increased engagement with our local community and surrounding environment. In this case, the interactive component starts with reaching out to our neighbors and previous collaborators for their feedback and experiences, and concludes with sharing the final compilation with them in printed form.

The ‘Triennial’ book project provides an opportunity for us to extend beyond our usual practice of display to include active dialogue, commentary and reactions from our surrounding viewers and collaborators. In this way, we hope to ground the projects in the space in which they took place, and to elicit ways for viewers and passersby to have a subjective voice in an otherwise objective documentation.

The location of Arrow Factory is tightly embedded within the fabric of the city, in somewhat hidden a small but active alleyway with modest owner-operated shops on either side. Within the community we are perceived as somewhat eccentric, given that we pay rent on a space that does actively generate income through the customary sales of goods and services. Our decision to work with contemporary art forms in this context is often met with puzzled expressions from our neighbors, but gradually over time we have built relationships with various residents and shopkeepers and when possible, have engaged their services and assistance along the way. We will arrange casual recorded interviews with a cross-section of our viewing public, eliciting their opinions about specific projects they have seen and/or inviting dialogue about our formation, existence and general mission. After transcription, edited selections will be translated and reproduced in ‘Triennial’ along with photo documentation of the interviewing process.

In addition to meeting with neighbors and residents, Arrow Factory also intends to engage with local and international artists whom we have worked with in the past. These conversations will take the form of individual meetings, email conversations and informal roundtable discussions, and will also be recorded and transcribed for inclusion in the book. It is our hope that the reciprocal nature of Arrow Factory’s agenda can be implicit in the book, and that it reflects a diversity of voices and opinions.

4 Time frame of project


• Summer 2010 recruit contributors, conduct interviews, gather and organize photographic documentary materials, create, edit and translate written text, amass content

• Fall 2010 layout and design

• Winter 2010 – 2011 editing and proofing, printing


5 Projected output of project

The primary outcome of the project will be a printed book of approximately 200 pages.

In addition to the book, our website will feature a blog documenting the book making process with posts of events such as interviewing neighbors and holding dialogues with artists. Selected content from the process will be made available online and archived to serve as a resource of supplementary materials once the book is published. A by-product of the blog is that it allows us an added channel of communication with our audience.


6 Who is your target audience for your project?

The book is designed with a broad audience in mind. The essays as well as the introduction are meant for a far-reaching audience, and it is our goal to have them written in a style that reflects exceptional expertise and erudition. All texts will be presented in lively, cogent prose appropriate for both the specialist and the educated, general reader. It will at once be appropriate for students, artists, arts professionals and layreaders. In addition, the quality of contributors and unique subject matter will ensure that this book finds a wide audience with China specialists and those engaged in the contemporary art world.

We believe that a volume of this kind would find a very receptive audience in the art world at large. Many artists, curators, and critics (let alone engaged viewers) who have traveled to China, have special interest in Chinese art or who are curious to know more about non-western art practices would find this volume an invaluable reference to some of the practical and day-to-day activities transpiring behind the academic discourse. As residents of Beijing and active participants in the art world, we have found in our conversations with artists, curators, critics, and dealers that there is wide disconnect between the actual art practices occurring here and the latest information promoted by the international media or within academia. Our volume would go a long in way in redressing this divide by situating itself between the academy and the art world, and would find an eager audience among those looking for primary material on site-oriented projects occurring beyond the museum or gallery sphere.


7 How do you propose to disseminate information about the project to your target audience?


8 How do you think your project will create impact on the art communities/the cultures that you want to engage with? How will it develop the field of your art form?

While the storefront exhibition space forms the core of what we do, we also feel that there is a level of engagement with our audience that may be overlooked since our space is generally unmanned and appears relatively anonymous. Publishing ‘Triennial’ is a way to open a conversation with our audience members and our collaborators. Our stated mission of Arrow Factory is simply to provide an alternative; a different context in which artists can experiment with pushing the relationships that radiate outwards from the levels of the individual, the neighborhood, the urban, the region, to finally, the global. The book is part of this initiative to continually broaden ways of artistic expression and modes of communication that are relevant and resonant with the way we live and work now.


RANIA HO 何颖宜
rania@dancingtoasters.com
www.dancingtoasters.com