我们是谁 ?
1- Host Organisation | 2- Residence's aims | 3- Nature of bursary
1- Host Organisation
- "藕"艺术中心是一个WOFE,wholly-owned foreign enterprise,它是丽江唯一一个合法的，可以组织各种艺术活动，文化交流的机构。
Mikael Cohen和Odile Baurens，两位法国人，自２００９年起来到丽江居住并于同年１１月创建了这个机构。多年来，Mikael Cohen在法国众多的文化活动中担任了计划的领导和执行工作。Odile Baurens则是位策展人和艺术设计师。
- Mikaël Cohen, managing director, and Odile Baurens, art director, are two French persons who have been living in Lijiang since 2008 : they have co-founded this company in November 2009.
For their first contact with China in 2005, they made a nine months journey marked out by hundred of stages through all the country. In 2006, they came back in France and welcome 15 Chinese artists (Gao brothers, Or Ning and Cao Fei, Wei Qing Ji, Wang Rui…) to collaborate with 30 French artists within the framework of their festival Un peu d'Alice, between Aix-en-Provence and Marseille. In 2007 they welcome the sculptor Shi Jindian within the framework of the Paul Cézanne's year in Aix-en-Provence with the exhibition China in his garden.
- The founders of this project live on the spot.
2- Residence's aims
Rhizome is an artists' residence and place for cultural events in Lijiang (Yunnan, China) which explores the borders between art, local life and environment.
- Rhizome support local artists.
- Rhizome propose to the western artists the discovery of a traditional culture always alive and dynamic.
- Rhizome presents events taking place outside its own building or international projects :
Ehrai Floating Sound, within the context of intercultural Festival Croisements France - China (Dali, China) // Ososphère Biennal (Lyon, France) // Avatar Festival (Quebec, Canada) // No. ( t ) a Music, Contemporary art center of Fort le Bruisson, (Francheville, France), Huis-Marseille Photography Museum (Amsterdam, Pays Bas) // Festival Todaysart - MyCityLab - (Brussels, Belgium)…
The philosophy of the art center Rhizome puts the human being and the alive in the center of its debate and turns around main trunk roads:
- Contemporary art,
- Local life which includes the traditional culture,
- The environment because we do not think that cultural diversity can not exist without biodiversity and both participate of and for the long term,
- An educational sector, with raising artists' consciousness raising in the schools and the young audiences by the implementation of workshops.
Diverse exchanges, discussions and confrontations have been taking place last year. Thus, challenging questioning and dilemmas have emerged. A sort of tension gradually appeared between local and global considerations, between the Western and the Eastern outlook. What do we want to share and exchange and why ? Till what point the context in which the art work has been created and the context in which the viewer has been living, may define art and art reception ? Within a relatively short amount of time, how is it possible to build a true cooperation and enable genuine and meaningful exchanges between artists who come from very different cultural backgrounds ? Several other topics are arising, such as the interaction between an international language and the use of local expressions, or between the core and the margins, quite typical components to today’s art reflection about the mechanisms of art production and art diffusion.
3- Nature of bursary
- Invitation letter : Rhizome being an official company, has the authority to deliver an invitation letter to be handed during the visa request with the consulate or the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in your country. This invitation allows you to obtain a visa F (business visa), motive: cultural exchanges for 1 to 3 months, renewable in China.
