The Earth Waters, Chen Yujun Exhibition
Collaboration with Chen Yujun's Studio
at West Bund, Shanghai

Since the collaboration with Chen Yujun and Chen Yuan for their exhibition “Mulan River – Cuò” at the Petach Tikva Museum of Art in Israel, it is our pleasure to take part in and be the partner of Chen Yujun's exhibition again at West Bund Art and Design fair in Shanghai.

Meanwhile, our publication "Mulan River" was presented again in this exhibition.

In 2017, with deep nostalgia, Chen Yujun brought his solo exhibition “Mulan River – Cuò” to the Petach Tikva Museum of Art in Israel, ten thousand miles away from his own home. For the first time, the sound of the lapping waves of the Mediterranean was blended with the gurgling waters of Mulan River, the mother river of Chen’s hometown. The Mediterranean Sea, once only a knowledge from a textbook and a colour block on a globe, is now vivid in front of his eyes. He couldn’t help but imagine how many trials and tribulations his clan ancestors, who left their hometown in Putian, had endured in the past hundred years to establish a new home along the Mediterranean Sea; and how the Land and Sea Silk Road, which began in the Han and Tang dynasties, would once again return to this destination in a thousand years later.

Just as the Mulan River has nurtured Putian culture, all human civilizations around the world are nourished by the mother river of their homeland without exception. As the poem goes, “Don’t you see the Yellow River come from the sky, rushing into the sea and never come back?” Every mother river that feeds its offspring will ultimately merge into a swath of sea and since the sea systems on Earth are inextricably linked, so are all mother rivers. No matter how different the geography, terroir, language, customs, culture and faith may seem, the sea that all mankind gazes upon is essentially the same shared system of waters. This inspiration is instantaneously transformed into the title: The Earth Waters. For Chen Yujun, the Mediterranean“sea” is now not only the meeting end of all the mother rivers that have nurtured regional civilizations, but also the Earth “waters” - the new start embodying the impartial upholding of“All under heaven are of one family”. This is no longer a particular sea, but the “waters” where all the rivers on Earth converge; this is no longer someone's sea, but the “waters” that unite the fate of all human beings. Once the war has subsided and the epidemic has been dispelled, we will be facing the sea with spring blossoms. By then, the Earth Waters will no longer be a dream aspired by the wandering and far-journeying, but the home that everyone on Earth should cherish and protect the most.

At times, it is as boiling as fire, signifying a melancholy destiny; at other times, it is as calm as glass, incarnating a magnanimous love. The Earth Waters, the origin of terroir and civilization, the way back to exile and nomadism, bestows its blessings generously and equally. May the endless symphony it plays be eternal and everlasting!

Text by Gao Feng

Exhibition Opening on 2022/11/11