Matter Matters

The exhibition Matter Matters involves twelve artists, four from the UK, and runs until 3 June at the Czech Chinese Contemporary Art Museum in Beijing. The exhibition explores themes around the environment and its protection. Among the UK-based artists taking part are Deborah Tompsett, winner of Chaiya Art Awards 2018, and Alastair Gordon. My interview with Alastair for Artlyst is being reprinted in the exhibition catalogue.

Yuerong Wu wrote the following description for the project:

'“We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental. Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature.” Laudato Si'

Today, all our lives are affected by the ongoing ecological crisis and climate change. Oceans and continents have suffered as a result of human activity over the last millennia, a process greatly accelerated during the past few decades. Some people are trying to mitigate the ecological crisis using a technological or economic approach. However, the benefits of these solutions are minimal, with new technologies prone to continue to pollute our social and natural environment. What matters need to matter today? Our contention is that by going back to the original source of our created matter we can rediscover our responsibility to all of God’s creation, nature, environment and human life alike!

According to the Bible all matter originates from the Creator. The Author of the extravagance of creation is also the One who is generous in giving it away for care and protection. In the Creator’s plan, every creature has an intrinsic value and He entrusts all this to the beings created in His own image – human begins. The Bible also tells us about the fall of human beings and how His creatures’ sin now reflects upon the suffering of all created matter. The anguished groaning of the environment reflects the human sinfulness and suffering. This is the message that the Bible can bring to the global communities now affected by the social and environmental crisis. The visual art project Matter Matters has as its purpose to establish an important dialogue about environmental protection through artistic expressions. We want to bring the biblical concept of stewardships into different cultural contexts where there’s an urgency with regards to issues of environment protection and protection of human life.

Arts offer a powerful language which can speak into one’s heart and generate deep reflection whether by watching a painting, listening to a piece of music, enjoying a dance performance, or reading a book. Nobel Prize laureate writer Saul Bellow once said: “Only art penetrates what pride, passion, intelligence and habit erect on all sides – the seeming realities of this world. There is another reality, the genuine one, which we lose sight of. This other reality is always sending us hints, which, without art, we can’t receive.”2 The project Matter Matters is an international visual art project that will include a launch exhibition, discussion forums which will provide a platform for conversations, and a catalogue which will include both art works prints and relevant articles on the topic of environment. The project asks the artists to seek and portray challenging realities through artistic expressions in order to stimulate participants and viewers to a conversation about the restoration of our human relationship with the natural environments.

The project Matter Matters will last for three years and will take place in various locations, in order to stimulate a meaningful dialogue about these important social and ecological dimensions of our societies, and how we should go about seeking reconciliation with ourselves and the created order. The project will be inaugurated in China in May 2019. We plan to hold the first exhibition in Beijing, followed by programmes in the coastal area in Hebei and in Kunming City. We have selected these locations because of their geographic importance in environmental terms but also because they are active hubs for contemporary Chinese artists. Beijing, as the capital city of China, plays an important role in terms of policies and decision-making fir the country and the world. Beijing area is also host to Songzhuang, the biggest artist village in the world. Having an exhibition launch and a discussion forum there is important because of the project’s purpose of generating a dialogue with fellow artists on these topics. In the coastal areas we find good examples of climate change, especially marine pollution. Kunming City is situated at the entrance point into the Mekong Region. The Mekong basin is one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world. The Mekong is one of the world’s longest rivers, accessed by several countries (China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam). Much of the 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic present on earth makes its way to the oceans. Ninety percent of plastic in the oceans is flushed there by just 10 rivers, and Mekong is one of them.'

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Bruce Cockburn - If A Tree Falls.