like a swamp
Walking in reinforced concrete every day, we seldom think that those cities that seem to be forever modern—such as Shanghai—was originally a vast swamp. Those dry and hard buildings were originally the territory of reeds.
Does this mean that over the past few hundred years, those of us who regard the artificial environment as the boundary of our life have completely separated from nature? If we look at the urban history of Shanghai, we will find that this is not the case.
The Huangpu River, the “mother river” in Shanghai, used to be only one of the eighteen Pus, a tributary of the Wusong River—today’s Suzhou Creek. Suzhou Creek flows out from Lake Taihu, and it is recorded that it was 20 miles wide. Both sides of the river are vast swamps. It developed into the later Shanghai.
The movie “Suzhou River”
A hundred years later, Suzhou Creek became a tributary of Huangpu instead, and Shanghai Beach grew up on both sides of the broad Huangpu. Just by juxtaposing these two historical cross-sections, we can get a glimpse of how humans have governed and used the waters we live in over a long period of time, and how the waters have changed in the process of flooding, sedimentation, diversion, and confluence. The appearance of the city.
We are used to dividing boundaries with the wet, viscous, and unknown nature, but as depicted in today’s art and literature, man and nature have long been a mixed relationship of me in you and you in me. In the midst of a serious environmental and human crisis (are humans about to die out in heat or floods? If there is still a possibility of change, how should we reorganize our relationship with nature?), hybridity acts as a The way of thinking that embraces heterogeneity and bonds cracks may be able to reveal a path leading to the future in the depths of the mud.
“Taihu Lake”: like river water,
Think like a spring or a swamp
Interview and writing: Vegetable market
The Suzhou Creek is flooded, and the river rushes over the embankment, chasing the “I” who was about to meet people on the bridge back to the apartment. , eventually drifting toward the ocean. “I can’t see the city clearly anymore, a labyrinth of roads, no, rivers now, criss-crossing and repeating, with the walls of buildings passing by my bathtub. “This is the scene in Cai Jun’s short story “Suzhou River” .
How could the Suzhou Creek never pass through “my” apartment? If you read this story after understanding the history of the coexistence and symbiosis of Shanghai and Suzhou Creek, you will not feel how absurd the adventure of water in the city and people in the river is: Shanghai was formed by the flooding of Suzhou Creek. It was built in the swampy land; the width of Suzhou Creek in ancient times may even include “my” apartment into the river. The boundary between the river and the city is always changing back and forth, not pure.
“Roads” and “rivers” not only overlap in history, the relationship between Shanghai and water is also a network intertwined in multiple dimensions such as energy, geography and economy. In Prada Rong Zhai’s latest exhibition “Taihu Lake” , a series of works by artist Michael Wang highlight this relationship between man and nature.
Michael Wang “Taihu (Taihu Stone)”, Prada Rong Zhai, Shanghai, 2022.11.10 – 2023.01.08, photography: JJYPHOTO
The “Shanghai Swamp” exhibited on the lawn in the backyard of the Rong Zhai is the most wonderful embodiment of this hybridity. Michael Wang described the charm of the swamp to us in this way: “The swamp is a space with in-betweenness, it is neither completely wet nor completely dry. In many dimensions, it is the opposite of the city: building a city Dry land and deep foundations are required. However, it represents the origin of Shanghai: a city that has dealt with water from the beginning, born at the confluence of land, river and sea.”
At first, the record about a gushing spring attracted his attention. There is a well in front of the Jing’an Temple in Shanghai, because the spring water in the well keeps bubbling, and foreigners at that time called it “Bubbling Well”. After research, he found that the well was originally connected to a reed swamp, and the bubbles that came out were actually methane. The well was first reduced to a square shape and eventually simply buried. “I think it’s interesting what remains of the swamp—something that’s very wild has been taken over by the infrastructure.”
Michael Wang “Shanghai Swamp”, Prada Rong Zhai, Shanghai, 2022.11.10 – 2023.01.08, photography: JJYPHOTO
“Shanghai Swamp” reproduces the artistic conception of this gushing spring. Michael Wang embedded a circular-cut corrugated steel water tank into a large, well-manicured lawn, into which a reedy marsh was planted. In order to fold the time scale of this site and restore the appearance of Rongzhai land hundreds of years ago, Michael Wang also referred to the seeds and pollen records of a paleobotanist, and found plants unique to Shanghai wetlands. Species – Shows how far humans have come on the road of mutual change with nature.
The swamp, with its circular steel border, is a man-made work of art, but the nature of the swamp’s ecology (or, as the artist puts it, “those very wild things”) makes it overflow the realm of art. It partially restores the long-lost ecological community in Jing’an District, attracting rare birds, insects or other species to inhabit the places where their ancestors once inhabited. It not only folds the history of this site, but also wonderfully mixes species, landforms, natural and man-made landscapes on different time scales, and operates freely in the ecological environment system.
Michael Wang “Shanghai Swamp”, Prada Rong Zhai, Shanghai, 2022.11.10 – 2023.01.08, photography: JJYPHOTO
The charm of the swamp in the space of art or science has also carried over to the world of literature, becoming a foothold for us to imagine a different reality. Just as the river in “Suzhou Creek” loosens the city boundaries in readers’ consciousness, the natural image of “swamp” also has a wonderful power for readers, and this power is even more multifaceted and inclusive. In literature, swamps often represent the juxtaposition of history and the future, and heterogeneous ways of thinking. The Irish poet Seamus Heaney expresses his love for the swamp in his poem “Kinship” :
I love this peaty skin,
its black cut,
process and awareness
the locked secret;
i love this ground
gushing springs,
Every river bank is a gallows’ falling board
every living pond
all belong to one Weng
Pull the buckle of the stopper, a moon drinker
visible to the naked eye
Difficult to detect.
For him, the swamp is a mysterious place that connects the past and present, the sacred and the violent, and even life and death in this land of Ireland. Heaney created a series of poems about the swamp, repeatedly bringing dead history to life. Like reeds and birds visiting the city center, he makes the “Queen of the Marsh” visible with the scars of the past: “And I rise out of the darkness… frayed stitches, hairs, glimmers of light on mounds of mud .”
The movie “The Swamp”
Similarly, Malaysian writer Huang Jinshu also regards the swamp as a middle ground, where history is intertwined, reality is ambiguous, and no matter how abnormal things can be compatible. In his short story “Fish Skeleton”, he wrote that the protagonist’s eldest brother disappeared “in the vastness of smoke and water” in a swamp due to political movements, and he dived into the depths of the swamp several times until he brought back a rare turtle shell, as well as his eldest brother. A vertebra on a skeleton where the Adam’s apple is located. He returned home as if all this had never happened, but in his heart, the questions about history and future seemed to be settled in this extravagant adventure.
Canadian novelist Alice Munro has a similar description of the swamp in the short stories “Munster River” and “Home Has Visitors”. “Pearl Street Swamp” or “Hellett Swamp” are never purely natural places. It is a mixed space where the histories of completely different people gather and where anything can happen. Even in the nonfictional world, swamps represent a complex way of understanding nature. “Single Reading 30: Going to the Park and the Wild” contains a “Great Swamp Chronicle”. The author came to the “Great Bald Cedar” National Reserve in Florida, USA, where “the waist is surrounded by black mirror-like water, and the water surface Reflecting the blue sky and white clouds and the huge green fern leaves, there is no sound in all directions, as if falling into a corner of the Carboniferous period, at any time, meat-finned fish will climb out of the water to stare at their descendants 300 million years later.”
There, the history of people actively working with the swamp spans centuries—sometimes in the most clumsy way of draining and restoring it. Even the uncle who is a volunteer in the reserve knows the revelation of the swamp: “Do you want this place to remain the same forever? Impossible, the climate is changing, and this swamp will change sooner or later. People have to find a way to adapt to the change.”
Michael Wang also said in an interview, “People often think that the antonym of ‘man-made’ is nature, and imagine that nature is a primitive picture.” But in his research, he often found that “the natural environment of a place may have long been in harmony with the local Human history has been intertwined for thousands of years.” The spring at the gate of Jing’an Temple was re-excavated with the large-scale reconstruction of Jing’an Temple. There are square wells at the bottom of the bell tower of Jing’an Temple and the intersection of Nanjing West Road nearby. “Bubbling Well “Fifty years after being buried, it’s bubbling again. Michael Wang tries to tell us in his works, “In the face of an extremely turbulent world, hybridity is the most productive way of thinking.” Allow yourself to be in hybridity, overflow the border like water, and tolerate differences like a swamp. nature, we may be able to see the possibility of dealing with future crises in the intertwined relationship between man and nature.
Q&A with Michael Wang
Single reading: In your conversation with Art of Change 21, you mentioned that your father was a geophysicist. Has he influenced your interest in environmental issues and the way you view the relationship between man and nature?
Michael Wang: Science—and a scientific way of thinking—was very important in the environment I grew up in. I often borrow the results of scientific research in my artistic creation, and I often collaborate with scientists. I try to make my artwork “operate” and resonate in spaces and systems that are generally considered outside the realm of art.
My dad’s work also sometimes took him outside of academia to tell others how to solve “real world” problems: how to store nuclear waste underground, for example, or how well stone performed as a building material. Perhaps it is in his work that I see the inseparability of natural and technical processes.
The movie “The Good Man in Three Gorges”
Single reading: In the “Taihu Lake” exhibition held at Prada Rongzhai, many works blur the boundary between nature and man-made. For example, “Suzhou Creek (Pile)” uses construction waste to reshape fir, but this kind of fir is not completely in the natural environment, but is a tool used by humans to control river water earlier. How did you design this “hover” between nature and man-made?
Michael Wang: Yes, many of my works mix artificial or technological forms with natural forms. I want to blur the normative boundaries between these two fields. By presenting the cedar tree—and its ancient use in controlling river water—I want to convey that this confusion between the natural and the artificial has deep roots.
Michael Wang “Suzhou Creek (Pile)”, Prada Rong Zhai, Shanghai, 2022.11.10 – 2023.01.08, photography: JJYPHOTO
Similarly, I used some materials that local artisans have used for centuries, if not thousands of years: Yixing clay and nephrite. These natural materials were originally part of the landform, but they were assimilated by human culture as early as in ancient times, and they are still the same today. And the recycled recycled concrete – and the organic waste I use in other works – also “hovers” between the natural and the artificial. Algae blooms in Lake Tai are caused by industry and urban runoff; the invasive species of Lake Tai that I used as material are recent and their emergence has been influenced by globalization and trade; even the shells of hairy crabs are aquacultured leftovers.
Single reading: We find that images of swamps and other natural bodies of water also have an important place in literature because they represent a hybrid way of thinking that transcends boundaries. Is there any work of literature or non-fiction that has influenced you in the process of making your art? Can you share your reading interests?
Michael Wang: Most of my understanding of the relationship between living organisms and planetary systems comes directly or indirectly from American biologist Lynne Margulis and British independent scientist James Lovelock ( Works by James Lovelock. And Professor David Beerling’s work “The Emerald Planet” (The Emerald Planet) is a very good introduction to the role of plants in natural systems.
My first “swamp” work – “First Forest” – was one of a series of works which I will collectively call “The Drowned World”, after the British novelist JG Ballard ) novel of the same name (he was born in Shanghai). I wanted to take the premise of that book (the Earth is regressing in evolution as it warms globally) and bring it closer to our current understanding of climate change.
“The Drowned World”, source: michaelwang.info
The works of philosopher Donna Haraway, environmental scholar Thom van Dooren, and anthropologist Anna Tsing have all opened up for me a way of understanding and speaking about species The way of life entanglement among them. In addition, in order to understand the changing cultural value of Taihu stone, I read translations of Tang poetry or Song poetry by Bai Juyi, Su Shi and others.
Single reading: In the place where you lived, is there any personal observation of water bodies that inspired you?
Michael Wang: I live in New York, also near the mouth of a river: the Hudson (I can see the river from my studio). Being so close to it makes me feel connected to the wider region. I’ll think about how it flows to the ocean, or how it originates from the Adirondacks.
I grew up near some of the largest lakes in the world: the Great Lakes, and very close to a group of small freshwater lakes. I’ve also always been fascinated by bogs: they’re both liquid and solid, and very subtle. Life that thrives in this wet, acidic environment looks so different from life in a well-drained, pH-neutral world.
Hudson River, source: wikicommons
Single reading: You said in the special dialogue held by Prada Rong Zhai for this exhibition, “In the face of an extremely turbulent world, hybridity is the most productive way of thinking”, can you expand on it?
Michael Wang: Perhaps due to my own background, it is easy for me to see hybridity as a natural result of people’s mobility and migration. My father and I were born on different continents, and several great-grandparents on opposite sides of my family were born across the ocean. Some of them come from China, some from Italy and the British Isles. Flow creates chaos. I think we need to embrace hybridity as a productive force, using hybridity as a model to create new experiences, forms, values, and life trajectories.
Prada Rong Zhai presents the exhibition “Taihu Lake”
Condensing the mixed charm of water ecology
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