Projektleiter*in: Lei Xi
Projektteam: -
Projektpartner*innen: -
Art der Förderung: ÖAW | Doc-Stipendium 2019
Projektlaufzeit: September 2023-September 2025
Institut: Fine arts and cultural studies-Department of Cultural Studies
With water-related sites and issues, such as Beijing’s hydraulic systems, Sangyuanwei Polder Embankment (桑园围), and the snow-making industry in Austria, as the main case studies, this ongoing artistic research project aims to understand geo-anthropocentrism (a form of anthropocentrism based on a geographical hierarchy), land-centrism (a position that regards non-terrestrial environments, such as waters, with a terrestrial bias), and their interplay with the land-water hierarchy, in order to enrich the rethinking of anthropocentrism by investigating its non-Western origins. Mainly through fieldwork, this project focuses on examining how water-related media and mediators, such as water management structures, aquaculture facilities, and even water itself, interact with humans, non-humans, and the milieux at land-water interfaces and what roles they play in the emergence of water-related crises, in the Chinese context and beyond. It also explores what potential artistic and creative practices can have in attempts to go beyond geo-anthropocentrism and land-centrism. In this light, based on particular on-site knowledge and embodied experiences gathered during fieldwork, as well as a series of artistic practices, it also aims to explore new implications of "amphibiousness" in terms of artistic methods, providing new directions for reshaping the relationships between land, water, humans, non-humans.
Kontaktperson: Lei Xi, xiju524954135@gmail.com
Weblinks: https://medialab.timesmuseum.org/en/kai-wu-studio/xi-lei