Newman Huo

THE joint exhibition by a group of five international artists and one curator who participated in this year’s OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT) International Residency Program has an intriguing name: ...Like Ships in the Night.

The exhibition, featuring four pieces of artwork, opened with a small party-like ceremony at the OCAT in Overseas Chinese Town in Nanshan District on Saturday.

This year’s residency program included Susanne Bürner from Germany; Paola Yacoub from Lebanon; Michel Lasserre from France; Claire Louise Staunton, a Canadian-born curator, writer and researcher now working in Britain; and Huang Xiaopeng, a Chinese artist who obtained British citizenship.

About two months ago, residents arrived at their workshops at the OCAT with a proposal of what they might undertake.

However, as is the nature of Shenzhen, where rapid development changes the city landscape as quickly as the weather in June, original plans had to be modified or even dropped to make way for more appropriate projects.

This enabled the artists to interact closely with their surroundings and most importantly to create a body of work that is culturally and temporarily specific.

This stepping away from their homes and predetermined ideas led to the varied projects that the artists and curator produced.

“The title of the final exhibition, …Like Ships in the Night, refers specifically to the residents and our experiences in residency,” said Staunton, who is acting as the exhibition’s curator. “Sharing the same waters, we met frequently and exchanged thoughts in small groups but maintained our independent rhythms,” she said.

During their two- to three-month stays in the city, the resident artists traveled considerably as individuals to research, view exhibitions and complete visa applications. They were never able to all gather in the same place at the same time.

“Such a dynamic is by no means unproductive or anti-social,” Staunton said. “Rather, the sentiment behind this title aims to accurately picture the experience as artists-in-residence and to develop a final exhibition featuring work that does not adhere to a curatorial imperative.”

“However, common threads run fleetingly through the residents’ work,” she said.

While at OCAT, Staunton initiated a research into art practices in Shenzhen. Considering the short history of the city, with a migratory population, she sought to investigate art practices in the past and present to recognize their roles in building a cultural identity.

A form of future-orientated archaeology, her research has been included in a publication titled “Time Is Money and Efficiency Is Life” published at the end of her residency.

Using books, video and photography, Bürner’s artwork asks viewers if they can see the invisible and believe the unbelievable.

Bürner came to the OCAT residency in an attempt to be closer to a seismic institute in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, where scientists are studying the behavior of snakes to predict earthquakes.

Bürner tried to investigate the theory that snakes can predict earthquakes but could not penetrate the secrecy surrounding the Nanning institute.

The failure to access the snakes under observation left her dubious about the research and led her to undertake her own research into snakes as a means of predicting seismic catastrophe.

Her studies culminated in the pseudoscientific book, “Understanding the World of Snakes,” which uses images, texts and interviews from multiple sources to explore the mystery surrounding the Nanning project, invoking other snake myths present in many other cultures.

Yacoub and Lasserre have been working in collaboration since 2000. Last year, they began a project called “Selected Motives.” The project consists of three separate but interdependent performances, “Tamils, Tigers and Tsunami,” “Hotel Lobbies,” and “Screen Scenes.”

The works stage the relationships between visual arts and skepticism, as initiated at the birth of modern art and continuing today.

Considering skepticism as a mode of existence, “Selected Motives” has tried to challenge people’s traditonal reliance on and faith in images.

At the OCAT residency, Yacoub and Lasserre took the opportunity to examine skepticism in a Chinese context and to present their material to an audience whose cultural orientation and views may be different from a Western audience.

Huang Xiaopeng is disturbed by the clashes of capitalism, colonialization and communism that are taking place in China today.

His time at the OCAT residency was spent pursuing a larger body of work named “You Are the Dream of My Realization.”

Developed in four parts in different locations in Britain, Hong Kong and Shenzhen, his project has examined how contemporary Chinese culture is involved in voluntary colonialization through its attempts to mirror foreign lifestyles.

Huang believes the golf course, as the training ground for the nouveau-riche and new aristocracy of modern China, has eaten up the rural landscape surrounding the city. In his work on display at the exhibition, Huang uses violent images to depict the meaning of the sport of golf, a recently adopted hobby in Shenzhen. He uses sports equipment and household utensils to turn this “gentlemen’s sport” into a disturbing display.

Dates: Through Dec. 1

Hours: 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Closed Monday

Add: OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Enping Road, Overseas Chinese Town (华侨城恩平路OCT当代艺术中心）

Buses: 21, 26, 32, 54, 59, 101, 105, 109, 121, 204, 209, 223, 234, 327, 328, 350, 370, 390.

Metro: Hua Qiao Cheng Station (Overseas Chinese Town Station 华侨城站), Exit A. About five-minute walk along Enping Road.