The White Stone
→The White Stone and Debris Series
→The Ground is Falling (solo), Aranya Art Center, 2021
→The 3rd Thailand Biennale: The Open World, 2023
→New Eden, ArtScience Museum, Singapore, 2023
→The 4th Future of Today Biennial: To Your Eternity, Today Art Museum, 2023
Photography
For centuries, humans have built worlds and cities on top of the ruins of the old ones. Now, we are entering an age where civilization is building a world at the highest point from the planet's surface, the lower Earth orbit.
In this film, we postulate a future history of rocket debris abandonment and recovery through a “hunt” for abandoned rocket debris in remote areas. The protagonist sets off across valleys and villages and into the desert in the southwest of China in a search for the debris of rockets fallen since the 1990s. She may find one, or she may never. She wonders what it would be like to be the first person to see this stone, to hear the rumblings from the sky, to shake by shivering land. Or perhaps it would come quietly, waking no one but alarmed animals. Either way, it falls as back into sleep.
In this story, the white stone is the fallen body of a rocket.
Shifting our gaze from the sky back to the ground, we reexamine the life span of technologies, marking the terrestrial death of an extraterrestrial object.
2021
Digital Video
21’57’’
2021
70 x 47cm
Digital Photography, Archival Inkjet Print
Location: FAST, astronomical observatory in the Dawodang Depression, Guizhou
2021
70 x 47cm
Digital Photography, Archival Inkjet Print
Location: Yaoshang Village, Guizhou
2021
47 x 70cm
Digital Photography, Archival Inkjet Print
Location: Jiu Quan, Gansu
The trip took three months in 2021. The team travelled through four provinces in western China: Jiangsu, Qinghai, Guizhou and Yunan. We never knew whether it was possible to find any debris, as they are rare and often collected by government officials within 24 hours after the fall. It was also during the COVID pandemic when travelling was intensely restricted. I am deeply grateful for my talented, dedicated crew, for the support from Aranya Art Center and curator Iris Long, and for the breathtaking sunrise every day in the desert during our trip that reminds me of home.
Credits
导演 Director: 刘昕 Xin LIU
概念 Concept: 刘昕 Xin LIU
制片 Producer: 王佳妮 Wang Jiani
摄影指导 Director of Photography: 张楠 Zhang Nan
摄影 Camera Operator: 沈咪 Shen Mi; 夏昊 Xia Hao
摄影助理 Photography Assistant: 吴澄宇 Wu Chengyu
剪辑 Editor: 姬京璐 Ji Jinglu
调色 Colorist: 姬京璐 Ji Jinglu
编曲 Composer: 施金豆 LANE SHI OTAYONII
混音 Sound Mixer: Zoe Zai
舞蹈编导 Choreographer: 东妮尔 NiNi Dongnier
舞蹈演员 Dancer: 李嘉益 Li Jiayi; 傅语涵 Fu Yuhan
场务 Set Coordinator: 李宏 Li Hong
后期助理 Post-production Assistant: 范泽坤 Fan Zekun
导演 Director: 刘昕 Xin LIU
概念 Concept: 刘昕 Xin LIU
制片 Producer: 王佳妮 Wang Jiani
摄影指导 Director of Photography: 张楠 Zhang Nan
摄影 Camera Operator: 沈咪 Shen Mi; 夏昊 Xia Hao
摄影助理 Photography Assistant: 吴澄宇 Wu Chengyu
剪辑 Editor: 姬京璐 Ji Jinglu
调色 Colorist: 姬京璐 Ji Jinglu
编曲 Composer: 施金豆 LANE SHI OTAYONII
混音 Sound Mixer: Zoe Zai
舞蹈编导 Choreographer: 东妮尔 NiNi Dongnier
舞蹈演员 Dancer: 李嘉益 Li Jiayi; 傅语涵 Fu Yuhan
场务 Set Coordinator: 李宏 Li Hong
后期助理 Post-production Assistant: 范泽坤 Fan Zekun
Debris
→The White Stone and Debris Series
→The Ground is Falling (solo), Aranya Art Center, 2021
The rocket debris used in the sculpture was donated by a private rocket company in China after the artist’s three-year negotiation with them. Although the debris has been stripped of any technological components and is just raw steel, it is still classified as "supplies to weapons" and cannot be exported outside of China. However, through the process of donation and the creation of art from this metal waste, the material's political properties have been transformed into works of art that can now be exhibited globally.
2021
95cm x 39cm x 47cm
Rocket debris steel body
2021
70cm x 29cm x 49cm
Rocket debris steel body
2021
115cm x 56cm x 49cm
Rocket debris steel body
2021
67 x 38 x 10 cm (each)
Rocket debris steel body
Spear, Eye, Wing, Horn
→The White Stone and Debris Series
→The Ground is Falling (solo), Aranya Art Center, 2021
→The 4th Future of Today Biennial: To Your Eternity, Today Art Museum, 2023
2021
256cm X 175xm X 55cm
rocket debris steel body, concrete, iron
2021
215cm X 64xm X 96cm
rocket debris steel body, concrete, iron
2021
220cm X 65cm X 116cm
rocket debris steel body, concrete, iron
2021
120cm X 65cm X 116cm
rocket debris steel body, concrete, iron
Drift Upwards, Fall Downwards
→The White Stone and Debris Series
→The Ground is Falling (solo), Aranya Art Center, 2021
A Collaboration with Nini Dongier
In the process of choreographing this dance, a clue gradually evolved, which is also the structure of the work:
I.Earth, buildings, low altitude, sky and ground turn upside down —— it is hard to distinguish plants, minerals, animals or people from each other. Lives thrive to survive and slowly expand their territory. By turning it upside down, we shift our focus back to individual growth.
II.Generating abstract rules and order, then reifying them: by folding, wrapping, pulling, forming right angles and circles, separating and running. A system embedded in the seemingly chaotic relationship … …
III.A whole inseparable movement - a continuous circular mural, every step is an ascent, a ritual.
Manifesting the feeling of body weight; confirming one's position in nature, in space, in the time frame of evolution, and quietly relocating it.
This is not a statement; it is a conversation between the actor and reality.
Our body is a contemporary medium; it carries the results of past biological evolution without skipping any step. Hence, I visualized both the history of our bodies and the memory of the now.
All in all, what we are dealing with are how four human bodies manipulate volume, weight, body details and senses in one place during a period of time.
This is a dance, also a moving sculpture. The environment is a sculpture as a whole with objects dancing inside.
NiNi Dongnier
Sep.18th, 2021