Notes on Bianjiang Hotel
by Ni Haifeng
Before the invention of the nation-state, the radiation of imperial power determined the peripheries and borders of an empire, and Xinjiang had thus always been considered a shifting borderland connecting Imperial China with its vast western front, where different forces contested over their respective influences along the fluctuating fault lines of allegiances; territorial borders, as a result, changed constantly. In the modern concept of the nation-state, the abovementioned peripheries and borders are fixed, and the nation and geographical territory must coincide with the state. As a political ideal, the nation-state imagines a congruence between state borders and the boundaries of national communities of the state. Historically formed nation-states, however, don’t always follow the formation of a homogeneous ethno-national culture, the incongruence of which is often acutely evident in border regions. Known to Westerners as Chinese Turkistan and Xiyu to the historical Chinese, Xinjiang was finally annexed by the Qing Dynasty in the 18th century. Ethnically and culturally, this western frontier region is very distinct from the rest of the country. Though nominally designated as an ethnic minority autonomous region by the state, it has often become a flashpoint of ethnic-cultural tensions, which have taken a turn for the worse in recent years. Today, it is one of the most contentious areas in the diplomatic relationship between China and the West.
Centered upon the theme of landscape, topography, excavation and treasure hunting, Liu yujia’s project resituates Xinjiang in an alternating temporal dimension, or more precisely, in a historical spectrum between the early 20th century when Sir Aurel Stein undertook his archeological treasure hunting, and the present in which the masses embarked on materializing the myth of “universal wealth”. The project examines the similarities and differences between the colonial archeological expedition driven by the anthropological gaze and the hunt for jade driven by Capitalism economic imperatives; it juxtaposes two disparate eras in which the subjugated peripheral territory has been under the domination of different forces. Sir Aurel Stein’s archeological activities were enmeshed in the broader context of the epistemological domination of Orientalism and the politico-economic domination of the imperial-colonial Western powers, while the “universal wealth” should be construed as a contemporary myth camouflaging the deepening fissures between the dominant and the dominated, in the context of the double onslaught of the unfettered neo-liberal capitalism and authoritarian statism.
The Diplomatic Residence Compound, or more broadly, the segregated foreign communities in Beijing are, metaphorically, a territory within the territory and a “periphery” right in the heart of the city, which echoes the historical setting of the Chinese western borderland. Here, Liu juxtaposes the disappearing landscape of Stein’s Xinjiang and the contemporary social-political topography (under the guise of the myth of “universal wealth”) in the Diplomatic Residence Compound, a symbolic borderland in which the context of contemporary international relations, politics and diplomacy lends the project an extra transhistorical and political dimension.
Border Hotel is a metaphor for a transitory space, a place of transit in a journey that is neither here nor there. Border Hotel is also the name of a vast cross-border market adjacent to the same-named hotel, where goods flow across the border in enormous quantities daily. Border, transit, transitory place and flow are the ideas setting the context for DRC No. 12 and the exhibition. There are overlapping meanings between Border Hotel and the Diplomatic Residence Compound, which in essence, is also a place of transit. As the title for this project, Bianjiang Hotel transforms DRC No. 12 into a metaphorical space of transit, in which temporal-spatial journeys into the historical borderland and socio-political explorations in the shifting landscapes may take shape.
Historical moments and present reality are at their most meaningful when compared or seen through each other’s perspectives. Installed on the corridor is a screen showing Uygur teenagers singing Ode to My Homeland in the Uygur language. Walking into the adjacent space, through the half-closed curtains, one finds a monitor placed on the balcony showing a Uygur man shaving his beard; loosely placed on the meeting table are archival photographs of Stein’s anthropometry. The artist combines the images of singing and shaving to represent two crucial contemporary moments in the political landscape of the changing borderland, which set a counter-perspective for Stein’s colonial anthropometric measurements on body compositions of the Uyghurs - another form of the docile body, subjugation or anthropological domination.
The artist transforms the kitchen into the environment of the Kucha Patriotic Princess’s quotidian life and a stage where most of her symbolically constructed life – a “post-Royal life” or a sort of post-mortem life - unfolds. The Princess herself is the very embodiment of the past and the present. Both the kitchen and covered table-tops in DRC No. 12 seem to superimpose themselves onto the images of the Princess going about her daily routine in her own kitchen shown on an old TV set.
The tent references Stein’s famous eccentricity, his fixation on living in a tent wherever he went (he famously set up a tent in the courtyard of his host, the then British Consulate in Kashgar); it is also a metaphor for the nomadism of border lives. Contemporary treasure hunting manifests its unabating craze in the jade exchange market through the lens of live-streaming E-commerce. The footage of the jade exchange market is shown on six smartphones placed around the tent, two of which provide live views of the market by connecting to a live-streaming E-commerce platform. The tent and the smartphones colligate two disparate temporalities. The physical volume sets the spatial anchor for the exhibition. The full-wall photograph of the Kunlun Mountains functions at once as a poetic ambiance and a metaphor for the timelessness of the unchanging natural world, which sets up stages for the shifting history of the human world.
Once again, the Princess’s mundane everyday moments fill the second washroom. This time, a sound installation depicts her cleaning the toilet, a labor activity unbefitting a princess, which is itself a metaphor for changing times. The kitchen and toilet are the main sites of her labor activities that form part of her new post-royal life.
The south room consists of two chairs, a small round table, a rug, a curtain and a video diptych. The small table with chairs on each side and the rug are a selective reenactment of the interior of the former British Consulate in Kashgar, now a hotel, in a typical Kashgar style decoration reminiscent of both the past and present eras. The duo-screen video installation compares the topographic images of Xinjiang from Stein’s archeological expedition and the artist’s own exploration, and, by the juxtaposition of the two disparate times, the video images narrate the sameness and difference of the vast landscape, the fleeting human lives, and the ever-changing space of politics and history. The curtain subdues the light of reality, casting a warm color of ambiguity upon the interior, where an oscillating narrative between the past and the present unfolds.
《边疆宾馆》展览札记
文 | 倪海峰
在民族国家发明之前，权力的辐射决定了一个帝国的边缘和界限，因此，西域在过去一直被视为是连接中华帝国和广袤的西部疆域的一个变幻莫测的边缘地带，不同的势力沿着波动的效忠断层线争夺各自的影响力，领土边界也因此而不断变化。西方人称之为中国的突厥斯坦，历史上的中国人称之为西域，这一辽阔的疆域最终在18世纪被清朝政府纳入帝国版图。在现代民族国家的概念里，上述的边缘和界限是固定的；国家、民族、文化与领土、疆域必须是高度重合的。但历史上自然形成的国家并不总是拥有同质(homogeneous)的民族文化，其错位通常体现在边缘疆域。
以风景、地貌、挖掘和寻宝为主线，刘雨佳的项目将边疆重新置于一个交替的时间维度中，或者更准确地说，穿梭在从20世纪初奥雷尔-斯坦因爵士的考古猎取到当今实现中的“全民暴富”神话这样一个历史连续性之中。该项目探讨由人类学“注视”(the anthropological gaze) 驱动的殖民主义考古探险和由资本主义经济需求驱动的玉石“狩猎”之间的异同；它将两个不同的时代并置，体现在这两个时代中，被征服的边缘领土一直处于不同权力的支配之下。奥雷尔-斯坦因爵士的考古活动应被看作是嵌入在东方主义的认识论主导 (epistemological domination) 和西方殖民主义的政治经济支配的历史大背景中，而“全民暴富”应该被理解为一个在不受制约的新自由主义资本主义和威权国家主义的双重挤压下的当代神话，掩盖了支配者和被支配者之间不断加深的裂痕。
外交公寓，或者更广泛地说，被隔离的外国社区，可被喻为领土中的领土，或位于城市中心的“边缘”，这与中国西部边境地区的历史背景相呼应。在此，刘雨佳将斯坦因的业已消失的边疆景观和“全民暴富”背后的当代社会政治地形并列在外交公寓这个象征性的“边境地带”，其中，当代国际关系、政治和外交语境赋予了该项目额外的跨历史和政治维度。
作为旅程的中转地，边疆宾馆是一个过渡性空间和疆域的隐喻，边境、过渡性疆域和流动为外交公寓12 号空间和展览设立了语境。边疆宾馆和外交公寓之间有着重叠的含义，作为这个项目的标题，《边疆宾馆》将外交公寓12号转化为一个隐喻性的过境空间，在此展开一场通往历史边境的时间之旅及一次针对这一动荡的风景地貌的社会政治探索。
历史时刻与当下现实在通过彼此的视角来比较阅读时通常能激发出新的意义。12号空间进门右侧的走廊播放着边疆少年用自己的民族语言齐声高唱《歌唱祖国》的画面，进入旁边的会议室，透过半掩的窗帘，观众能看到阳台上的监视器播放着一段被摄影机“注视”着的一名正在剃须的男子的视频图像，会议室的长桌上放着斯坦因人种测量的历史照片。艺术家将唱歌祖国和男子的肖像结合起来，表证了不断变化的边疆政治格局中的两个关键的当代时刻，这为斯坦因对当地住民的身体结构进行的人种测量提供了一个镜像视角——这是另一种形式的驯服的身体 (docile body)、征服或人类学对他者之主导。穿插在整个空间各处的窗帘则暗示着一个被遮蔽的现实。
库车爱国王妃劳作的场景以声音和影像的方式在卫生间和厨房出现。艺术家把外交公寓12号内部的“边缘空间”——洗手间和厨房转换成了库车爱国王妃的日常生活环境，她的大部分象征性的“后王室生活”都在此展开。王妃的身体和劳动本身就是过去和现在的交汇点。外交公寓12号物理空间中的厨房和洗手间可以被看作是重叠在声音和影像中的王妃的劳作场所。这些与王妃身份极不相称的劳动本身就是一个时代变迁的符号。
帐篷源自斯坦因的古怪行为，即使是在当时的英国驻喀什领事馆的庭院里他也执意支起帐篷住在里面。它同时也是游牧主义的隐喻。通过网上直播镜头，“当代寻宝”在玉石交易市场上表现出其久经不衰的狂热。玉石交易市场的画面通过放置在帐篷附近的六部智能手机播放，其中两部手机通过连接直播平台提供市场交易的实时画面。帐篷和智能手机碰撞出两个不同的时间性。帐篷的物理体积也成为展览的空间支撑。墙上的昆仑山照片既是一种诗学的氛围，也是对永恒不变的、为人类世界不断变化的历史搭建舞台的自然世界的隐喻。
南面的房间由两把椅子、一张小圆桌、一块挂毯、一块窗帘和一个双屏幕的视频装置组成。小桌子与边上的椅子和放置在地面上的挂毯是对前英国驻喀什领事馆内部的选择性重现，典型的喀什风格装饰同时勾勒出过去和现在的两个时空。双屏录像装置对斯坦因考古考察中的边疆地形和艺术家自己的当代社会地貌探索进行比较，两者互为注释，通过两个不同时代的并置，图像叙述着广阔亘古的风景及其中转瞬即逝的人类生活、不断变化的政治和历史空间的同一性和差异。窗帘压制了现实的光线，在室内投下了充满歧义的色调，在过去和现在之间，一个摇摆于两者之间的叙事缓缓展开。