A Conversation with Shao Yinong and Muchen
24th May, 2020
On a humid Friday afternoon in July 2019, a group of art history students from the University of Western Australia arrived at the residence of artists and couple Shao Yinong (SY) and Muchen (M). Welcoming the group into their home, the artists presented and discussed their work, before beginning an informal Q&A. Questions asked by Debbie Gilchrist (DG), Harry Price (HP), Jess Cottam (JC), Sam Beard (SB).
Muchen (centre left) and Shao Yinong (right) discussing their work, 2019. Photograph by Eloise Viney.
M: This photography is connected from the past. So when we photographed this series in the early 2000s, the environment in China was quite open. We spent lots of time organising to photograph these. The work is (not) about memory and the past. A lot of our work relates to breaking the boundary between nostalgia and reality. But it is naive to think that this phenomena still exist, however it is important to record/report what happened in the past. (Referring to a series of portraits of children.) This series of work looks the old photographs of the 1950s and 60s. We have used colours similar to the propaganda images of the ‘50s and ‘60s. The concept was the first time we experienced a feeling between nostalgia and truth. We photographed this surreal world, but the subjects are modern. We use these nostalgic colours to erase the boundary; connecting the modern subject with this complex sense of nostalgia.
DG: Why did Shao and Muchen choose this particular subject, was it to give voice to disabled children?
M: So, originally we were going to title this series Us. So it’s a way to show and give respect. Normally, people photograph political leaders this way [the colours evoking 1960s era political imagery]. I wanted to give them the dignity afforded to leaders. I think that these images might suggest that we are all scarred from that time, all imperfect. The style and colours of these photographs are the colours of my childhood, as well as those of a particular time in our history. We all have a scar left from that time.
DG: What was the process behind these photographs of the children?
M: I visited a school, and discussed the project with them.
HP: Did you pick out what they wore in the photographs, or was that what they were wearing on the day of the shoot?
M: It was their own casual clothes.
DG: You have a degree in photojournalism, so did this inform your idea for these photographs? How does the collaboration between you and your husband Shao work during projects such as this?
M: Oh yes, we discuss business (laughs). We live together and making works is also together, so there is a lot of communication with each other. The work evolves from that. It’s natural.
DG: Mr Shao, you graduated in 1982, not long after the Stars exhibition (1979). How did that era inform your creatively formative years?
SY: There is not any direct influence or inspiration from the Stars exhibition, but I was touched by those days and the work of those artists. So, their work existed as an event. Because the exhibition was shut down by the government not long after the opening, not many people saw the initial show. But the exhibition was recorded and published in some magazines, more as an event, than about particular artworks.
DG: Do you think that this event encouraged you to be more expressive in your work?
SY: Not directly, no. It was more of a breakthrough for those artists. The artists of the Stars exhibition, with their radical ideas, actually brought some opening or new environment for those who followed. I came to Beijing in 1984, and not long after there was the 1985 New Wave movement. I was more influenced by the ‘85 New Wave.
DG: In relation to the disabled children, have you noticed any change in social policy and support?
M: There are specific schools for children with those issues. However, change is slow.
SY: The [political] power of art is very limited. Maybe its only influence is among those interested, fellow artists or intellectuals. However, for the average person or for political officers it is very limited. So actually, from 1979-2000 contemporary art was actually forbidden to exhibit in China. So the presence of contemporary art in China was not felt until after 2000. Prior to that, contemporary artists were concerned that the authorities would shut the exhibitions.
M: Even now, art exhibitions are inspected and censored.
DG: Have any of your exhibitions experienced this?
M: In 1995, one of the projects we were to exhibit in a show at the Central Academy of Fine Art. But days before the opening, they shut the exhibition and refunded costs.
DG: What was the exhibition?
SY: So that project was actually of an artistic movement that existed in an arts village. So they tried to chance out the decent artists. So all those artists were arrested. After their release, they were heroes to all of us. After that, many of us became more aware of how to play the game and work without resulting in that sort of attention.
Discussion moves to Shao and Muchen’s assembly hall series displayed in the living room.
DG: When you were there photographing the disused assembly halls, how does it feel? I imagine it being uncomfortable.
SY: When I was five years old, I remember the assembly hall. The oldest uncle in my family was criticised at an assembly hall meeting twenty metres away from the family home, when I was five. My grandfather, mother’s father, owned a grocery shop. One day we were trying to find my grandfather. Walking to my grandfather’s shop, someone pointed to the assembly hall and said, that is where your grandfather’s shop was. So these buildings are a part of a collective memory for most of us. The assembly hall is a soviet style building. I would track down the disused halls. Many were locked up, so I would peak my camera through the old keyhole of the entrance and try to take photos. The assembly hall is a space that accumulates the experiences of the Chinese people. So when we photograph these series of work, we did not photograph them as architecture, we think of them as portraits. When we call these portraits, it is because the destiny of each assembly hall is very different: some are trashed, some are recovered and rebuilt, some are turned to shops, or become temples to Buddha. There are halls that are restored for tourism and education. This one looks like it is being reused as a brothel. This other one is a temple. Originally, Chairman Mao’s portrait was put here [gestures to the joist towards the back of the hall]. Now the image there is of the Buddha.
Shao Yinong & Muchen, Shenfan, 2004, C-print, 122 x 168 cm
SB: What has been the response to your work that refers to the Cultural Revolution, such as the assembly hall series?
M: It is a collective memory. Therefore, everyone’s memory is different, although it is still shared. Maybe for those born in the 1940s and ‘50s, they have a very strong memory of it. While for those born in the 1980s and ‘90s the experience is different, but it is all part of a collective understanding.
SY: Everybody’s attitude towards this series is so different, because every families’ experience of the assembly hall was varied.
DG: In the family register series, it felt to me like you were recording your family. Lining them up to be counted in some way.
M: In the family books, they have more than 300 members, but only photograph about 100. These 100 people are all still alive. When the family members heard about this project, they were very pleased to be photographed and involved.
DG: Do you believe art can affect social change?
SY: It is a problematic question. For example, propaganda art and posters were used to direct, to influence. Art that interrupts the order of society and influences people’s behaviour is not good. One could say, that kind of art is negative. Good art is freer and works with peoples spirits. It is about affecting people intellectually and psychologically, and engaging at a spiritual level. So, the best art, I think, works like the Buddha; opening your mind and enlightening you about something in some way.
Translated by Tami Xiang. Transcribed by Sam Beard.