Floating Island

CHEN Wei | CN

Born in Fujian, China. 1981, Lives in Xiamen now. He studied Art and Design since 1996. Graduated from Xiamen University Art College, Master in Fine Arts in 2009. Exchange Study in Sandberg Institute Amsterdam in 2007. Graduated from Xiamen University Art College, Bachelor in Fine Arts in 2004. His subject is Multimedia Art, Visual Communication Design, Curatorial Practice. He is now the Director of C-PLATFORM. He used to be the Curator of Guangdong Museum of Art and the Lecturer of Art and Design Dept. of Xiamen University Tan Kah Kee College. Curator of JimeixArles International Photo Festival in 2016, the Visiting Curator of DutchCulture centre for international cooperation and the Mondriaan Fund in 2011. the Visiting Artist of Aberystwyth Arts Centre in 2008.

He has participate in many exhibitions curating, including the projects：PHU2-SU6 Local Action of Jimei×Arles International Photo Festival，PechaKucha Xiamen，Little Island Little Bird- An Exhibition, DOF: Depth of Field- Contemporary Photography from Belgium, WATW: We Are the World- Chinese and Dutch Photography Exhibition, The Box Films Project, Power of Copying- International Contemporary Design Selected from Art Academies, Verdensteatret- A Media Art Exhibition from Norway Exhibition, A+B+C/F= FUTURISMO Exhibition since 2009. His personal artwork is frequently presented in international art and design institutions, such as Center for Contemporary Art in Sacramento, U.S.A. James Taylor Gallery, UK.W139 Art Basement, Amsterdam. Fei Contemporary Art Center, Shanghai, Chinese European Art Center, Xiamen.

Bas Losekoot

Born in 1979 in Amsterdam. Currently lives and works in Amsterdam. He holds a BA in Fine Art Photography from the Royal Academy of the Arts in The Hague and recently graduated for an MA in Photography and Urban Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. His work has been sold to various private collections by auction houses Christie’s and Sotheby’s. His work is exhibited widely in galleries and at festivals like: New York Photo Festival, Voies-Off/Les Rencontres d’Arles and Unseen Photo Fair Amsterdam. The Urban Millennium Project is published in a variety of international media like: The New Yorker, Die Zeit, Volkskrant, CNN Editions, GUP, IMA Magazine and the British Journal of Photography.

His works are challenging our understanding of reality in everyday city-life as well as the limited narrative potential of representations of truth in documentary photography. With an intuitive eye he visualizes the human experience in modern megacities. His practise combines concepts of mobility, liminality, the cinematic, social geography and the influence of mass media on human behavior.

Sarah Mei Herman

Born in Amsterdam in 1980. She studied photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in The Hague, from which she received her BA in 2005. In 2010 she completed her MA in Photography at The Royal College of Art in London. Sarah Mei Herman has received several grants from Mondriaan Fund and Prins Bernard Cultuur Fund. Her work has been shown internationally, among others at The National Portrait Gallery in London and at Le Chateau d’Eau in Toulouse. In 2010 her ongoing series Julian and Jonathan was selected for the Talent issue of Foam Magazine.

In my work she explore relationships and intimacy between people. The closeness between them or what sets them apart, and the necessity of physical proximity to others. She mainly focus on the intimacy within the family, with a special interest in sibling relationships. Now as an adult, she find herself observing siblings, repeatedly photographing them; trying to get a closer understanding of what this familial intimacy means.

Liu Shuwei

Born in 1986 Tangshan, China. Current works and lives in Shanghai. His works awarded 2016 PDN THE LOOK First place. He's a finalist of 2016 Lens Culture Portrait Awards, 2016 The Three shadows photography awards and 2015 Barcelona International Photography Awards （BIPA）, and 2016 Athens Photo Festival short listed. His works got featured in Der Greif, Genda magazine, and exhibited internationally.

He’s interested in individuals’ status of different stages, reveries and the ways of dealing with the world. Currently working on Blue Trilogy. “Tracks” is a view of Xiamen along bridges and lights.

Juan Sea

Born in 1981 Taipei. Currently lives and works in Taiwan. Photographer, curator, the operator of Ruan Yizhong photography workshop in Taipei, the Lecturer of Xue Xue Institute and photography clubs of the colleges. His works was exhibited in The Possibility of an Island Taiwan Biennale, Seeds and Cities Hong Kong La Gallerie paris 1839, Kizuna, Japan TSUTAYA Bookstore and other art institutions and exhibitions. He has published photo album Happiness in the courtyard in 2015and Double happiness in a Courtyard in 2016.

Juan Sea mostly uses the mobile phone as a medium to create the photography. He always believed that the most beautiful scenery is the human, he used the lens to discover people’s humor, cute and kind faces. When people are tourists abroad, everyone will open his mind, open the curious eyes to explore things, he is expect himself like this, even if only in his familiar surroundings, he still will be like a tourist, always keeps the curiosity, opens the mind and opens the eyes, to catch the beautiful people and things in sight.

Ma Wen

Born in 1979 Henan, China. Currently lives and works in Xiamen. He received MA in art and cult spaces, with Prof. Nikolaus Lang from 2002 to 2008, in Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany, and BS in Architecture, in North China University of Water Conservancy and Electric Power from 1997 to 2001.

His works were participated in The Future of Nostalgia, Art Museum of Nanjing Art University & C-PLATFORM(CN), Hanging in the Balance, Selby Gallery(USA), Dialogue-CEAC 10 Years Anniversary Exhibition, Xiamen(CN), BMW ART PROJECT in FIZ, Munich(DE), Youth Art in the church space St.Lukas, Munich(DE) etc. 

Xie Shaojie

Born in 1981 Xiamen, China. Currently lives and works in Xiamen. He became a freelance photographer in 2006. He began to shoot Peek-a-boo in 2011. He participated in part of the shooting of Jiang Sheng the Sheltered Deities and became a candidate of the 8th Three Shadows Photography Award in 2013. His works were exhibited in 2013 Enter online exhibition Power Station of Art; 2016 Snacks Power Station of Art.

"Jiaotou" is read as "kak-thâu" in Taiwanese, with the meaning of "domain". Taiwanese and Taiwanese all have the culture of "Jiaotou ", most chieftains are the small local gangs. This group of works called "Jiaotou ", all landscapes were shot in Xiamen. There is another kind of “chieftain phenomenon” scattered everywhere. They may be towering buildings in the ruins, may be the united cemeteries on the hills. New and old forces fight in these sites, there is always a power to prevail, as the rulers of these corners. Time is changing, space is changing, forces are also changing. In the role of time, the traditional and new life are constantly changing.

Chen Boyi

Born in 1972 Chiayi, Taiwan. Currently lives and works in Tainan. He graduated from the Institute of Water Conservancy and Ocean Engineering of National Cheng Kung University in 1999, and he is currently studying in the Ph.D at the Institute of Water Conservancy and Ocean Engineering of National Cheng Kung University. He has participated in photography teaching and curatorial work, specializing in photography and ocean engineering. His works have been exhibited in the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Shenzhen He Xiangning Art Museum, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts and other places, he was invited to participate in the Phnom Penh International Photography Festival in 2013. His works are collected by the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Japan Qingli photographic art museum and private units.

Chen Boyi mostly uses photography as a medium, he has a deeply personal observation and image of thinking about the relocation and reconstruction of military dependents' village in Taiwan, and has created a lot of images of the ruins with personal style. He argues that the window is the opening of contacting landscape emotions. Because of the industrial expansion, it forces the traditional settlement to disappear, the impression of the land is remade, and the Out Look only becomes discontinuous historical record in Records of Geography of Taiwan. Through his photography, we can clearly observe the traces left by the wall, the works have long-term observation of the ruins of Taiwan, and spurt with the aesthetics of ruins humanistic care.

Lin Meiya

Born in 1979 Xiamen, China. Currently lives and works in Amsterdam. She graduated from the Art College of Xiamen University and the Visual Arts Department of Sandberg Institute of Amsterdam in Netherlands one after another and gained the master degree. From 2006 to 2007. She was a resident artist at the Rijksakademie Vanbeeldende Kunsten in Netherlands and participated in many exhibitions and projects organized by art institutions. She usually works with videos, interactive video installations, and video games.

Since the end of the 20th century, the world has begun to show the trend of globalization. Major cities started to develop under rapid speed in China (or in Asia). New ideas of environmental planning have been implemented to change urban landscape. Old streets have been gradually replaced by newly built roads, old houses have been dismantled to give space to skyscrapers. The impact of the changes was profound to her, a person who had lived overseas for years. She can no longer prove that my memories were not merely dreams. All the images residing in her looked different in reality.

Chen Yongpeng

Born in 1961 Xiamen, China. Currently lives and works in Xiamen. He graduated from Xiamen University in 1982, and began to study symbolism poetry and photography during the time. He is one of the sponsors of Free God Folk Photography Group. He participated in the"5/1" photography exhibition organized by Xiamen University Photo Club in Hongkong 1987. He was holding solo photography exhibitions and experimental video exhibitions in Beijing, Xiamen and other cities. Representative works: The course of the human, Monument, The sea with reefs under the moonlight and so on.

In the late 1980s, Chen Yongpeng moved from Beijing back to Xiamen, and from large visual spectacle

back to the small city on island. The Gulanyu and ancient blocks in Xiamen that accord with human habitat and the historic architectures left in the period of Republic of China touched his thinking about the relationship between human and city, architecture and space and time. He try to chose a closely objective vision to stare and reserve some personal and public memories at that period.

Katrin Korfmann

Born in 1971 Heidelberg, Germany. Currently lives and works in Amsterdam. She studied at Kunsthochschule Berlin and Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, where she specialized in photography. She continued her studies with residencies at Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, Cittadellarte in Biella and Akademie der Künste in Berlin. She won several prizes for her work, including Radostar Prize (CH) in 2012, Prix de Rome (NL) in 2003 (category of Art in Public Space 2nd), Mama Cash Award (NL) in 2000 and Esther Kroon Award (NL) in 1999.

Katrin Korfmann fascinated by the process of industrial manufacturing of art as opposed to the romantic notion of the lonely artist in his studio, scanned one of the stone workshops in Hui'an, moving her tall tripod meters above the dusty floor and half-finished sculptures to let her photo camera observe the carving process from above. she composite panorama assembles a succession of moments into one large, panoramic frame. Stone sculptures appear, that are being wrought from the depths of the earth, whose stone quarries are like giant mountains in reverse: negative space transformed into positive sculptural space in workrooms with the appearance of archaeological dig sites. What Korfmann shows is that meaning is not only to be found in a finished art work, but that the anterior and posterior of art can be equally meaningful. Ultimately, Hui'an transports the production of art to the level of art itself.

Kim Waldron

Born in 1979 Montreal, Canada. Visual artist. She has an MFA from Concordia University and a BFA from NSCAD University. Her art practice frequently uses self-portraiture as a means of engaging with various contemporary social situations. Active in the local, national, and international scene, most recently she has exhibited work at Mains d’oeuvres (Paris), Ortega y Gasset Projects (NYC), Dunlop Art Gallery (Regina) and Chinese European Art Centre (Xiamen). She has been awarded artist residencies in Paris, Vienna, Newfoundland, Xiamen and Beijing. She was the recipient of the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art and the Pierre-Ayot Award in 2013.

The project involved exporting herself to China to work for workers, framing herself as a Canadian commodity at work in a Chinese context. This gesture can be understood as a giving back of some of the time that Chinese products have saved Westerners. Considering that China is the largest exporter of goods in the world and that it is emerging as a superpower built on the labor of its workforce, her project engages directly with the power dynamics at play in a global context. these photographs focus on the context she found herself in and provide a human dimension to our abstract relationship to production and consumption.