McaM Screening Project丨Go Nomadic Together: Nomadic Body

The Screening Project is a special attachment to McaM’s 5th Anniversary Art Festival. In three-months period, museum will present three series of artists videos and films screening—each will last for one-month or so to provide diverse facets and multi-layered perspective on the topic of Body through. The screening project is also expected to resonate with museum’s focal concentration and focus on happenings and actions on sites, as well as performance art while sensations and imagination toward Body will be activated through various artists experiences, thus to further explore different cultural background and critical thinking framework behind. The whole watching journey will start with first month’s collaboration with artist Chyanga (Qin Ga) who is also the founder of Rhizomic Space to present a selected works screening from the project “Go Nomadic Together” that he initiated via the platform of Rhizomic Space in 2020. Thus to offer an alternative perspective through Nomadism as a cultural pattern, mobile physical experience and the contemporary practice in it, and also to explore how nature can be sensed and engaged with nomadic body, and how geographical features can be participated physically and spiritually with. Screening Project#1 lasts till 31st Dec, 2021.

Nomadism involves political structures and living mechanisms nomads formed over years in their production and life. Along with the evolution of human history and civilization, this pattern of culture has offered the world a different cultural perspective. With a dynamic structure, it is in an ongoing process of changing or crossing the established boundary. The contemporary aspect of nomadism, in the overwhelming context of globalization, has penetrated our daily life and led to structures with differentiated values, which may help to restructure the world.

To an individual, mobile physical experience and sense-based perception are very important in breaking the conventional cognitive pattern. The contemporary practice in nomadism covers a wide range, from history and culture to nature and life style, in which field, everyone has unique experience and understanding. This art project brings different individual events together to show the possible values of the contemporary nomadic structure.The artists to be invited will choose freely when and where to carry out this “Nomad” project. Any medium is acceptable, including but not limited to painting, sculpture, installation, performance, video, sound, music, dance, etc. The place can be everywhere, no matter it is a prairie, a desert, a mountainous region, a city, or even the cyberspace. “Go Nomadic Together” is intended as an open “nomadic” art experiment and a collection of individual cases as well.

Screening & Artists Introduction

Narankhuu was born in 1981 in Hohhot,Inner Mongolia. He graduated from the Oil Department, School of Fine Arts,Minzu University in 2004. Mixed media artist, musician, and curator Founder,organizer, planner, and member of Mstudio. His works cover a wide range ofmedia, including painting, installation, performance, sound, and video.Narankhuu’s art examines the theme of life and fate, aiming to add morespontaneity to art practice. Microorganisms and chemicals are included in hispaintings, installations and space-specif art. The use of biochemical techniquein the expression of concepts in art distinguishes him as a unique artist whoworks with warmth and conscientious efforts. In 2015 he began to explore sound,making it part of his art. In 2017 he started Mstudio, an experimental groupfor mixed-media art, trying to open up possibilities for new mixed-mediaexhibitions. Concepts are introduced to invalidate the features of space andadd a new dimension typical of installation and video. At the same timerestrictive conditions are given to ensure that artists from different fieldsand of different styles can be juxtaposed in a way that is both independent andnatural. For their unique way of presenting mix-media art, Mstudio has becomean exemplar in mixed-media exhibition. 

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Sheng Jie was born in 1975 in Beijing, China. From 2000 to 2005 she studied at the Department of Art  in De L’École Supérieure Des Arts Décoratifs De Strasbourg, majoring in video art and got DNSEP (Diplôme Nationnal Supérieur Expréssion Plastique). She was sent to ECA (Edinburgh College of Art) on an exchange program, where she studied film and television. Her art features “listening” and “looking” as basic languages in various media, like experiment music, sound, video, painting, film, installation, composition, audio and visual arts, live performance, etc. She turns the perceptive process into an output and in the meantime takes a close look at the circulating system in the field that is formed with the space. She started “Shan”, her new—media based audio and visual studio, also a platform for communication. In 2018 and 2019, she became a core member of the avant-garde composing group called Maybe Noise. In the same year she founded her visual and audio art studio DOT. Her first solo “Oviparity” was released in black vinyl in March 2020.

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LKhajav of Mongol ethnicity, was born in 1986 in East Uzemchin Banner of Shiliingol League, Inner Mongolia. In 2010 he graduated form the Oil Painting Department of Mongolian National University of Culture and Art and became a member of Blue Sun Art Association in 2011. He is now based in HuhHot. His major solo exhibitions: TIME IS IRREVERSIBLE, Lkhajav Open Air Solo Exhibition, Uzemchin Grasslands, 2020; Wordless Narration, Zanabazar Art Museum, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 2011; ZOHIMJ, Zanabazar Art Museum, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

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Munguntsetseg Lhagvasuren is a Mongolian contemporary artist born in 1986 in Ulaanbaatar. She studied at the School of Fine Arts and graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts in 2009. In 2009, she started exhibiting her paintings, and in 2011 she began working on installation, photo art, and performance. She won the Grand Prize at the 2016 Land Art Mongolia 360 Biennial for her textile installation based on horse manure. Her works have been exhibited in museums and art galleries in Mongolia, Korea, and China. 

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NiNi Dongnier（Duniyar）(b. Inner Mongolia) is a choreographer, dancer, and interdisciplinary artist, founder of Field Motion, and co-founder of the NUUM Collective. She holds an MFA (Choreography and Technology) from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, having previously graduated Summa Cum Laude from Beijing Dance Academy with BA and MA (Ethnic and Folk Dance), also studied as a visiting scholar at SUNY Purchase College (Contemporary Dance). Dongnier’s practices take many forms, from dance, performance, and theater, to moving-image, programming, soft sculpture, and text. Rooted in the northern trans-border nomadic culture, views of nature, philosophies, and art, her art is continuous exploration of metaphysics of the human body, motion and its relation to specific space and time. Running through all the practice is an interest in perception, embodied experience, migration, natural landscape, and the structure and cultural entanglement behind them. Shuffling back and forth between Beijing, New York, and Inner Mongolia in the past decade, she immerses herself in traditional art on one hand, and on the other hand, embraces a unique perspective that welcomes the dissonance from various forms and philosophies, which is internalized into an independent style of artmaking. She is particularly good at finding connections and shared nature among seemingly opposite things, challenging dualistic thinking.

Dongnier was an artist in residencies at The Movement Lab of Barnard College-Columbia University, Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, and the American Dance Festival ICR. Recent projects include commissions from Shanghai International Dance Center, and Media Art Xploration Festival. Her works have been presented by Movement Research at Judson Church, New York Live Arts, The Watermill Center, La MaMa|CultureHub, Mana Contemporary, among others.

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Liu Chengrui, of Han ethnicity, was born in Qinghai province in 1983 and is now based in Beijing. His creation is centered on the body. Through action, performance, painting and writing, he shows the persistence and transcendence of the will of life. “Decade”, a project he launched in 2006, is a moderate cornerstone of his creation. The project is expected to use appointment as a bond with many participants to reshape each other’s life scene and social personalities over a long period of time. He has held exhibitions (projects) or given performance in Xie Zilong Photography (Changsha), MadeIn Gallery (Shanghai), Shanghai ART (Shanghai), Minsheng Art Museum (Beijing), Vitamin Creative Space (Beijing), Institution for Provocation (Beijing), Labirgnt (Lublin), CAFA Art Museum (Beijing), A4 Art Museum (Chengdu), NIPAF (Nagano, Japan), Busan gallery (Busan), Liberia Center For Contemporary Art (Beijing), etc.

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Enkhbold Togmidshiirev is born in 1978 in Guchin_Us soum, Uvurkhangai province. Hearrived in Ulaanbaatar in 1997 and studied at the School of Design for threeyears and graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts in 2005 with a degree inpainting. He worked as a teacher at the Institute of Fine Arts from 2005 to2011. After joining the Blue Sun Contemporary Art Center in 2005, he beganparticipating in international projects and programs at the invitation ofcurator Annu Wilenius. Inspired by traditional nomadic life of the Mongolians,he is dedicated to exploring the the contemporary significance of everydaymaterial in Mongolian life through performance and installation. His works havebeen widely exhibited in museums in Finland, the Netherlands, Korea, UK,Australia, China, etc., among others, Asia Triennial Manchester (2010), the 9thShanghai Biennial (2012), the 56th Venice Biennial (2016), and The 9th AsiaPacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (2018).

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Shinetana of Mongol ethnicity, wasborn in 1983 in East Uzemchin Banner of Shiliingo League, Inner Mongolia. Shegot a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s Degree from College of Art, InnerMongolia University in 2006 and 2016 respectively. With painting, video andinstallation as main media, her art explores the spiritual structure of nomadicculture by gathering from different sources historical and real-life fragmentsfor her reflection on the social conditions of nomadism andthe reality of nomadic life. She is now based in Hohhot. Her major soloexhibitions are: Livestock Shed Studio, Personal Project, Shinegol Gachaa,Ulaanhaalga Sumu,West Ujumchin Banner of Shiliingol League, lnner Mongolia,2020_2021; Hohhot Diary, personal project, Hohhot, 2019_2020; Pursuit ofModeling of the Gods and the Spirits, College of art, Inner MongoliaUniversity, Hohhot, 2015. 

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Munkhjul (Lv Jiajia), of Mongol ethnicity, who used to studymusic composition in the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and wastaught by professor Jianping Tang. Then, she received her “Superieur Diplome deComposition” when she studied in Ecole Normale de la musique de Paris inFrance. During her study in Paris, she learned from famous composer Mr.YoshihisaTaira and professor Edith Lejet. She held many concerts of her works indifferent countries. Munkhjul has publishedpersonal Contemporary Chamber Music Albums “sign language” and “Hidden Game”.She has set up a contemporary chamber music band ”Mongolism” and hasparticipated in many domestic and international art and music festivals since2013. As an improvisational music performer, she cooperated with “Beijing freeimprovisation alliance” and other Chinese and foreign musicians with many rich experimentalimprovisations.