Cao and Chen present two new videos from Water System Project, their ongoing artistic research project conducted around the Minjiang River and Dujiangyan, a water management system built 2200 years ago in the Chinese province of Sichuan. For 'Observing Point', the artists collaborated with farmer Wang Yizhong, who started a tree-planting project over 20 years ago in the hills around his home in Shuitianping village, an area of large-scale deforestation since the 1950s. For 'Water System Refuge', the artists worked with a community of the Qiang ethnic group, who are creating a living village museum to preserve their knowledge and traditions. Through collaborations with residents and researchers, Cao and Chen interweave questions of landscape, livelihood, climate change and the creation of alternative futures through small-scale actions. They also investigate the effects of reconstruction that followed the Sichuan earthquake of 2008.
Cao Minghao, born 1982, Changchun, China
Lives and works in Chengdu, China
Chen Jianjun, born 1981, Nanyang, China
Lives and works in Chengdu, China
Water System Refuge, 2019
Video, colour, sound, 17’30’’
Observing Point, 2019
Video, colour, sound, 17’30’’
Commissioned for ‘Cosmopolis #2: rethinking the human’
Courtesy of the artists