05.07.2013

Walk Like a Chinese. Workshop with Bo Zheng

Together with the exhibition “Occupied. ORTung 2012” Bo Zheng will make a workshop in Salzburg. The workshop is held twice:

Friday, July 12, 2013, 2 p.m.
Saturday, July 13, 2013, 2 p.m.
If you wish to attend the workshop, we ask you to sign up till July 11. Up to 12 persons can participate at each workshop. The workshop is free of charge.

“Walk Like a Chinese will be a participatory work. I will teach visitors how to walk with a relaxed body and a relaxed mind, trying to forget the urban disciplines that have shaped our walking, one of the most basic aspects of life. Before the exhibition, I will record typical walking movements in real life in China: walking leisurely and chatting as a group, never walking in a straight line, walking and eating sunflower seeds at the same time (and spitting shells on the street), etc. I will use these videos as teaching materials in the workshop. The workshop will be conducted on the street in front of the Kunstverein, the documentary of the workshop will be presented in the exhibition Occupied. ORTung 2012 (18.7.-15.9.2013).

This idea came about when someone in Strobl asked me if some tourists there were Japanese or Chinese. I said I could tell that they were Japanese. I thought about the reason later, and realized that it’s because their body gestures have been shaped by decades of urbanity. We (Chinese) are decades behind in the modernization process and our walking is not yet disciplined (though the relaxed way of walking is being threatened now). The workshop ties into the Occupied theme in at least two ways – occupying the street simply by different ways of walking, and how to free our mind from the state of being occupied (that we have to reach a destination in the most efficient manner).”
Bo Zheng