Embracing Ecological Return: Solar Terms – Ink Art Exhibition

July 27, 2024 – July 26, 2025 (Forest Exhibition)

July 27 – September 30, 2024 (Gallery Exhibition)

Curators:

Ping Jie, Xu-Yu Hsu

Artists:

Lan Zhenghui, Li Gang, Qin Feng, Zhang Zhaohui

About:

Solar Terms is an ancient Chinese calendar that sections 24 seasons within the year. These terms are differentiated by the changing seasons, plants, and climate, and they were created by farmers to better know the agricultural landscape. To this day, the solar terms let us understand and adapt to nature’s patterns and rhythm.

We are embracing ecological return in an art exhibition that features ink paintings hanging in the forest over the course of a year. Our organizer will document and track the changes of the artwork according to the solar terms.

Because Eastover Eco-Village is surrounded by hundreds of acres of pristine natural environment and is now a rare habitat where people, animals, forests, and natural water sources coexist, it is the perfect place for a dialogue between art and the environment. In a world where we people and art commonly interact, we are instead letting art interact with the ecology and environment that we rely on for our survival.

Because of the characteristics of ink wash art, the work already consists of natural properties. When these natural properties combine with the environment and the artwork is allowed to breathe this in, the ink and paper will respond and take in what it will from nature.

Artwork can be placed in the midst of society’s hubbub, or it can choose silence; when a piece of artwork is completed, it becomes an independent individual. It has relationships with people or with nature that can form the trajectory of the work’s fate. With this exhibition existing for two months inside the gallery and for a year in the forest, we observe both ends of the spectrum.