2010-ongoing
Each workshop lasts approximately four hours, during which time a former student of Dorodango (“shiny mud ball”) Master Kayo of Kyoto, Japan, will lead participants in learning the technique of making shiny mo-ni, an alchemic process whereby mere dirt, water and the contemplation of the artwork creates a polished wonder to hold dear for a lifetime. No matter the imperfectness of the sphere or its mottled terrain, participants gain in that comparative sense of pride with which all our notions of value and capitalist competition are based.
Thank you to Reinaart VANHOE and 王懿泉 WANG Yiquan.
12 December 2015
commissioned by《艺术世界 Art World》magazine, hosted in collaboration with 李丽莎 Lisa LI
Shenzhen-Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Architecture & Urbanism; Shenzhen
In Shenzhen, soil and sand were gathered from various locations and brought to the table as an instigator of real estate speculation. It is rumoured that Shenzhen has overtaken Beijing and Shanghai as the most expensive city in China. Passersby and participants sat down together for topical discussion and to learn the alchemic craft of making the mo-ni ball, a spherical wonder of envy-inducing value made only with dirt, water and the gentle caresses of patient hands.
If art is a value-maker, then the tools of art as applied to handfuls of Shenzhen land have given us limitless possibility, turning .0009 square meters of real estate into a plot worth CNY ¥5,005.20.
After the workshop, some participants chose to take a piece of real estate back home with them. Lisa and I used the rest to fill the sea or other smaller gaps between very expensive spaces.
If art is a value-maker, then the tools of art as applied to handfuls of Shenzhen land have given us limitless possibility, turning .0009 square meters of real estate into a plot worth CNY ¥5,005.20.
After the workshop, some participants chose to take a piece of real estate back home with them. Lisa and I used the rest to fill the sea or other smaller gaps between very expensive spaces.
6-8 June 2012
in collaboration with 杨立才 YANG Licai
part of “请坐 Have a Seat” at the Tulou Open House, organised by Samantha CULP and Dana WU
Tianzhong Village, Fujian Province
1 & 7 May 2010
in conjunction with the exhibition Also Space2
C-Space; Caochangdi, Beijing
In Beijing, the topics set forth during the meditative act of mo-ni making allowed for a gentle interplay between a free flow of thought and teacherly instruction, the affectionate chastising of others’ work and the occasional bite of lovers: “You can stop talking now.” Interludes of silence were comfortable moments of concentration, the hands in motion while we thought round thoughts. It was a round-a-bout way to discuss contemporary art and value creation, another chuckle over the money we’re missing and the reverberations of one curator's comment that we lay some far outside from “what’s going on”. But it was an understandable inconspicuousness to position oneself also, in addition, alternative, marginal. This externality to the core left us feeling insecure, slight. But why? It was his premise from the beginning that these should not be hierarchical estimations, and rather, we had been discussing art and democracy, art and anarchy. Perhaps these things were not so far off from panel discussions of the sort, but we were seeking form from our politics, like the organisation of ever smaller grains of mud and sand. So small that they reflect light on their surfaces. Shiny mud balls. Value and importance are self-created entities, perhaps overdetermined, like the roundness of a mud ball made smooth and glossy by caring hands.
