Hello Hello,
Well another week has passed! And boy, did it pass quickly. I am now on the home stretch with only little more than a week to go.
The teaching classes have been fantastic, with the kids moving well in terms of their understanding of photography and their willingness to take risks and find out what they can do.
We plan to have a small exhibition at the end of the week and invite all the parents into the centre for a bit of a look and some nibbles. That’s going to put a bit of pressure on the interpreter. LOL.
When we’re not in the class situation our time is spent traveling around to the various galleries and exhibitions that are on in Shanghai at the moment. The art scene here seems very vibrant and relatively open. I have seen some brilliant work here by various artists and marvel at the relative freedom these guys have to pursue their work. Firstly, they seem to take enormous risks in terms of what they are willing to pursue….many of them change style and subject as they would change their clothes, allowing themselves the freedom to pursue new ideas without considering how the market will respond. I like this approach. You may say that these Chinese artists have less of a free voice, with censorship present on every level of Chinese society……however, I seem to think this small barrier to absolute freedom of speech is surmounted easily and confidently by the artists who’s work I have seen, by innuendo, satire and irony. The censorship merely forces the artists to become more creative and subtle in the way they approach the subject or comment they wish to make….the comment is still made! Secondly, with China’s amazing industrial might, the artists here have access to materials and labour that may have been prohibitive to other artists elsewhere. They can also not limited by scale.
