Artist’s Talk : Xie Rong : Tuesday 28th Nov : 1pm : Lecture Theatre
Xie Rong Tuesday 28th November 1pm Lecture Theatre
It’s with great pleasure that we invite Xie Rong to deliver our final Artist’s Talk of the term this Tuesday lunchtime.
Xie Rong, also known as Echo Morgan, fearlessly challenges stereotypes surrounding “Chineseness” and femininity through her provocative art. She uses her body as a canvas, employing materials such as Chinese ink, red lipstick, coal, chlorophyll, and even her own breast milk to create expressive action paintings and emotionally stirring portraits. Drawing inspiration from personal experiences and broader themes like the body politic and eco-feminism, Xie Rong skillfully combines Eastern philosophy, the Fluxus movement, and action art to encourage introspection and foster meaningful dialogue.
Xie Rong’s artwork seamlessly integrates English narration with Chinese folk songs, challenging prevailing notions of beauty, power, and vulnerability. She honed her artistic skills at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute High School, Central Saint Martins, and the Royal College of Art. Her visually enchanting creations have garnered international acclaim, with exhibitions held in various countries. Collaborating with photographer Jamie Baker, Xie Rong explores the fusion of painting on photographs and employs mark-making techniques, resulting in unique artist prints. She also creates intimate and emotionally challenging personal films. Recently, Xie Rong has expanded her creative collaborations to include musicians and movement artists, delving into the realm of immersive site-specific storytelling experiences. Blurring the boundaries between theatre and action art, she practices art as the healing power within our community.
Xie has earned numerous accolades, such as the Aesthetica Art Prize in 2014, the 40 Under 40 Perspective Art Award in 2017, the Chinese Arts Now Scratch Award in 2019, and was shortlisted for the Mother Art Prize in 2022. As a lecturer and researcher, she has presented her work at many UK and Chinese universities. She is an associated lecturer at the Chelsea College of Art, Royal College of Art, Central St Martin, and Glasgow School of Art.
Xie Rong is based in both the UK and China. Her dedication to pushing boundaries and defying conventions is evident in her work, which continually pushes the limits and invites viewers to engage with thought-provoking narratives through the embodiment of body, gesture, and voice.
Film screening on the March 25th, 2022 at Central Michigan University
Gifts For The River Film Festival seeks to celebrate our relationship with the land and waterways that sustain us. To celebrate the artists and filmmakers who are in intentional relationship with the natural world and utilize their medium to create awareness about the issues that threaten Mother Earth as well as celebrate the ongoing resilience of Turtle Island and the peoples who care for it.
As part of the conference series on “Women and Masks” atBoston University, I am glad to present my long-term research on performance artist Xie Rong 谢蓉 (Echo Morgan) for the first time.
The performances of Xie Rong 谢蓉 (Echo Morgan) engage with Masks and Maskings as strategies of a strong contemporary female artistic expression. Born in Chengdu in 1983, Xie Rong’s studies have taken her to the UK, where she currently lives and works. Looking at Chinese culture from a diasporic perspective, her performances focus mainly on her family history in relation to the political history of modern China. She uses both physical Masks as well as various strategies of Masking her skin, which highlight the body both as a place for the projection of transcultural phantasy and as a site of power struggle. Contextualising the case study of Xie Rong, the presentation takes a conceptual approach, to understand her artistic engagement with Masks and Maskings as a ‘method’ of corporeal investigation and as ambitious intercultural articulation.
Freda Fiala is a writer working across the contexts of performance art, new media dramaturgy and interculturalism, through researching and curating. She is a fellow of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and currently pursues a PhD on contemporary performance practices in East Asia. She studied Theater and Chinese Studies in Vienna, Berlin, Hong Kong and Taipei. Her research interests mainly include cultural diversity, cross-cultural exchange and ‘actionable speculations’ in the age of digitalisation.
Lawn Are an Ecological Disaster, Are you surprised?
This year I have been researcher on the history of Lawn. Reflecting on the social and environmental impacts of Lawns, family roots, man occupied space, collective memories, native species beyond human centred perspectives. How visionary plans for the city can be sustainable for generations to come.
Portrait 爱LOVE is made from layers of wild flowers and weeds from our lawn. The character written across my face reads: Love. If the lawn is a symbol of status and a sign of pride and unity in the community, I truly wish our love for a manicured lawn can be more inclusive by allowing it to grew higher and more wild.
Film: TianFu Lawn: Keep off the Grass In early 90s, my father’s business was declining. He borrowed money from his friends and family to invest in properties. A trusted the contact in the government, shared a secret business opportunity. Chengdu is redesigning its city centre on Ren Min south road, where the imperial city was demolished during the Cultural Revolution. My father can invest in one real estate and turn it into a shop front. This seems to be a golden opportunity to change his life, he dreamed excitedly the future customers spending fortune on his merchandise in the middle of this heavenly city centre. One year later, the reality was unexpected and cruel. This city centre square that many people was waiting for was 88000 square meters of lawn. Lawn does not grow well in China so for the next 24years, “Keep Off the Grass” has become a symbol for a civilised city. Together with ground-breaking urban modernisation, our motherland has transformed from mountains and water, villages and gardens to forests of irons and concretes decorated by manicured and not so evergreen turf patches.
XieRong’s wild lawn & neighbour’s manicured lawn, Surrey England
TianFu Square in1980, ChengDu China
XieRong’s father in TianFu Square, 1991, ChengDu China
Echo Morgan (Xie Rong) is a performance artist. She has always been interested in the relationship between Body, Memory and Politics through gesture, mark making and storytelling. Through video and an audience Q&A, she will share her research into some inspirational artist’s projects (including Betsy Damon, Zheng Bo and Song Chen), that address important environmental issues through the theme of water, plants and soil.
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