Walk along the beach and you’ll find bottlecaps strewn across the sand; stroll down the street, and you’ll see plastic bags tangled in the tree branches above; turn on the TV and you’ll hear reports of record-setting heatwaves or wildfires burning out of control for weeks on end. Signs of an ecological crisis are everywhere you look.
Continuous Regeneration, an interdisciplinary exhibit on environmentalism and sustainability at Shanghai’s Columbia Circle, offers a sobering picture of our troubled relationship with nature. In painting, installations, video, and multimedia design, the show invites us to reflect on how our own actions affect the world around us.
每去海边旅游，金黄色的沙滩上总会看到废弃的塑料瓶盖；街头信步闲逛，光影透过枝桠洒下来，一抬头却发现挂在树枝上的几枚垃圾袋；打开电视电脑，欧洲的热浪又创新高，澳洲的森林大火烧了几个星期……生态危机，成了与我们每个人密切相关的热门话题。
在上海上生·新所正在进行的“持续新生”（Continuous Regeneration）环保可持续跨界艺术展，就以绘画、装置、影像、跨界设计等不同形式的艺术语言，令人动容地诉说着人类与自然共存关系的现状。
Everyday sights we can no longer see
Continuous Regeneration brings together artists from around the world working in several different mediums. In Israeli artist Zadok Ben-David’s Blackfield, a spread of blackened trees calls to mind the devastation of wildfires dominating the news; Japanese artist Yasuaki Onishi’s installation Vertical Emptiness shows hanging branches covered in an ominous, unnatural white frost; and in Chinese artist Qian Honglin’s The Puppet’s Last Experiment, human body parts, volcanic eruptions, and expansive ruins, seems to warn us we’ve nearly exhausted our natural resources, and the apocalypse is nigh.
Deforestation, the demolition of entire mountains, and our uncontrolled rate of trash production are all very real threats to the environment. Yet, in many countries, people who are truly aware of the future implications of their actions are far and few in between. Continuous Regeneration believes art can help begin a much-needed dialogue on the topic.
这些我们早已司空见惯的场景，从未被重视。
“持续新生”将来自世界各地的艺术家聚集在一起，以各种不同的媒介进行创作。炭黑的树木成片出现，很难不让人联想到山火肆虐的新闻——这是以色列艺术家 Zadok Ben-David 的作品《黑色田野》（Blackfield）；
非冰非雪的白色树枝悬空而置，似是“雾凇”，却是枯枝——这是日本艺术家的大西康明（Yasuaki Onishi）带来的《纵向空白》（Vertical Emptiness）；
人体残片中，火山喷发，四周环境里，处处废墟——这是中国艺术家钱泓霖带来的《傀儡最后的实验》，好像警醒着我们资源消耗殆尽，“末世论”即将到来……
放火开山、砍伐植被，产出大量过剩物资而垃圾成堆，然而，在许多国家，真正意识到其对未来的影响的人却寥寥无几。“持续新生”认为，艺术可以帮助人们就这一话题开启一场急需的对话。
Can we change? What’s next?
Our overconsumption and wasteful practices have become a real threat to the natural world. But how do we change? How do we better ourselves? These are the unanswered questions posed by environmentalists everywhere.
They’re also questions being asked by Chinese artist Yuan Long. His contribution to the exhibition is Regeneration, an art piece that sets crosshairs on the issue of plastic pollution. To create it, he collected over 20,000 plastic bottles from 4,000 households. The sheer scale is meant to give much-needed perspective at the scope of the problem: the bottles used in the massive installation are merely 2% of the amount of plastic waste the world is going through every minute. Through an accompanying questionnaire that audience members can jot down ideas of how this global issue can be addressed, Yuan makes the work participatory.
可以改变吗？我们能做什么？
我们消耗的资源、产生的垃圾，已经成为整个自然界的重荷。如何改善？如何进展？所有心系环保的人都会如此发问。
这次的展览上，中国艺术家袁隆把目光对准了环保最大的威胁之一：塑料。他从将近 4000 多个家庭里收集了总共 2 万多只塑料瓶。这个巨大的装置《新生》，仅仅占全球每分钟被消费的塑料瓶总量的 2%。通过附带的调查问卷，袁隆请每个参与者写下如何解决全球塑料垃圾问题的想法，以此让观众参与进来。
Putting “garbage” to good use
While sustainability has become more mainstream, people are still learning how to cut down on the wasteful practices we’ve grown so accustomed to. One work exploring the topic is Yan (meaning “perpetuity”), created by the florist company Zhi Zhi. At events and banquets, floral arrangements are often just tossed in the trash once they end. By collecting all of the discarded flowers and materials from a recent event, they built a stunning installation that extends from the stairwell into the upper floor.
Chinese artist Yin Xiuzhen introduced several “bookcases” made from recycled clothing. It began with him collecting unwanted apparel from friends and family, but that expanded into sourcing additional unwanted garments from strangers. This upcycling project is the artist’s method of inviting discussion on the idea of “ready-made.” In a fast-moving capitalistic society, can the old be given new life? Can they be endowed with new purpose?
This concept of reusing and recycling is something that can also be extended beyond physical materials. These works suggest that the recycling process isn’t just physical—it can also be artistic.
如何利用“垃圾”？
在全球倡导“可持续发展”的环保语境下，如何提升重复利用率就成了世界新课题。譬如一般大型晚宴上数量可观的花艺装饰，在宴会结束当下，就会被丢弃。而花艺品牌“植治”则回收了某晚宴留下的木炭以及植物原料，在展览上与楼梯空间结合，带来了在地装置作品《延》。
中国艺术家尹秀珍则带来了一组旧衣制成的“书架”。从一开始使用自己和亲友的衣物，到后来开始收集陌生人的衣服，尹秀珍觉得再次使用他人用过的东西，会让人“会重新反思‘现成’的意义”，也能令人在高速发展的经济社会里去进行更深刻地内省——旧物是否能够通过循环利用得以“新生”？“新生”能不能一以贯之地持续下去？
这种对回收再利用的形式并不仅仅局限于物资层面，而是与人们更深入地讨论了其再度被艺术创造的可能。
Ifs & the Future
Continuous Regeneration aspires to be more than an art exhibition, and the name itself is layered in meaning. “Continuous” alludes to the exhibit’s goals of being an unbroken thread between the past, present, and future. “Regeneration” represents the active steps taken towards change. It’s the process of turning nothing into something, and from that, the discovery of unknown possibilities and opportunities. “Through this innovative exhibition, I would like to show people how artists are dealing with sustainability and how it works in practical terms with concrete actions,” says curator Li Yemeng.
From concept to art, from art to reality: perhaps one day we won’t need the lens of art to remind us of nature’s beauty, and we can tread more softly on the world around us. Yet do that we’ll have to find a different path than the one that got us here.
Tickets for Continuous Regeneration are now available online.
如果，未来……
“持续”是一种无间隔、无限延续的状态，连接历史、现在和未来；“新生”则是“引而发”的突变，从零到一，从一又到无穷尽。策展人李叶萌说：“我想用一场带来理念革新的展览告诉大家，艺术家在如何探讨可持续，以及可持续是怎样具体的行动方式。”
从理念到艺术，再从艺术到现实，或许终有一日，我们可以不再需要艺术的滤镜来提醒我们去守护大自然的美。
购票请点击此处。
Exhibition:
Continuous Regeneration
Dates:
2019 年 11 月 24 日 ～ 2020 年 2 月 16 日
Hours:
Tuesday ~ Thursday, 11 am ~ 6 pm
Friday ~ Sunday, 10 am ~ 9 pm
Closed Mondays
Address:
Columbia Circle
1262 Yan’an West Road
Changning District, Shanghai
China
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Contributor: Chen Yuan
