Last spring I met with the lovely Zhang Chuan 张川 from UCCA, The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art , in Beijing's prestigious 798 art district. She is the program manager for their education and public programs department, and she got in touch with Xavier and I after seeing the interactive mural we did together in Tokyo last May at the Art Re-Public festival.
She wanted to know if we would be interested in doing something similar at UCCA and if I would be interested in teaching monthly English language art workshops for young children.
Of course we said... "Yes!"
The idea we discussed was to take the children around the gallery space and show them one of the exhibitions. I explain a little about the artists and their work and answer any questions the children have. Afterwards they are given an opportunity to explore the artistic concepts, mediums or materials presented and create something of their own.
I held my first Art Discoveries workshop last weekend titled "Transforming Photography". This workshop was based on the "Securities and Exchanges" exhibit by Walead Beshty, a Los Angelos based artist from England. Beshty is most widely recognized as a photographer and his current exhibit at UCCA features sculpture and photography.
We had a great time cutting, composing and pasting different images and exploring the worlds of photography and collage. The final results were fantastic!
Can't wait for next months workshop on the 13th of November. This time our inspiration will be the Chinese artist Liu Jianhua.
You can see more of Walead Beshty's UCCA exhibit here: www.ucca.org.cn
More information about Beshty and his work can be found here at Wallspace Gallery's website: www.wallspacegallery.com
Beshty was also featured in the 2008 Whitney Biennial.