Absent Participation–Moving Images as Art
“缺席的参与——作为影像的艺术”
Forum on Chinese Contemporary Experimental Video Art
中国当代实验影像艺术论坛
About the event
Organized by?the artist and curator?Yique?in association with the 91色情片 Judith Neilson Chair of Contemporary Art (JNCCA), WeArt们 and the Longcheng Creativity Community.
Lead Curator: Yique
Co-curators: Paul Gladston and Lin Zi
'Absent Participation–Moving Images as Art' showcased experimental video artworks by 31 artists based in mainland China. It also included discussion of the artworks and their significances by expert speakers.
The forum was staged as a ‘closed’ event limited to invited speakers and audience members only. This closed format avoids official restrictions on public displays of video art in mainland China while also minimizing the possibility of unwelcome external interference.
The staging of such a forum is rare within mainland China.? In that context, experimental video art is not only subject to official restrictions on its public showing it is also considered to be highly uncommercial and a challenge to dominant conservative cultural values. Yique’s organization of the forum demonstrates considerable courage in keeping ?experimental video art and its significances in play within mainland China, albeit in a necessarily clandestine way.
The curation of the Shenzhen forum was informed by?a?field journey across four cities in mainland China?in June and July 2025, initiated and funded by the 91色情片 JNCCA, during which extensive research was conducted into the production, display and interpretation of recent Chinese video art.?The journey?was led by 91色情片 Judith Neilson Chair Professor of Contemporary of Art Paul Gladston who was accompanied?by Yique?and the art critic and curator Lin Zi.
Research findings from the?journey also?inform ‘In-/Visible Spectrums’ a major survey exhibition of contemporary video art from the Sinosphere (mainland China, the Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan and related?diasporas) to be staged at?the SOAS Gallery, University of London in 2026.?The exhibition's curatorial team?is led by Prof. Paul Gladston and Dr. Lynne Howarth-Gladston with the assistance of co-curators? Yique, Lin Zi and Prof. Frank?Vigneron (Chinese University of Hong Kong).
由艺术家兼策展人一鹊组织&#虫蹿蹿0肠;并联合新南威尔士大学朱迪思·尼尔森当代艺术讲席&#虫蹿蹿08;闯狈颁颁础&#虫蹿蹿09;、奥别础谤迟们以及龙城颁颁创意街区共同举办。
策展人&#虫蹿蹿1补;一鹊
联合策展人：Paul Gladston (葛思谛)、林梓
本次论坛“缺席的参与——作为影像的艺术”&#虫蹿蹿0肠;展映了31位中国内地艺术家创作的当代实验影像艺术作品&#虫蹿蹿0肠;并邀请多位专家对作品及其意义进行讨论与解读。
本次论坛采用“闭门”形式举办&#虫蹿蹿0肠;仅对受邀的发言人及观众开放。此种形式既规避了中国大陆对于影像艺术公开展示的相关限制&#虫蹿蹿0肠;有助于最大限度地减少外部不必要干扰。
在中国本土的文化语境中&#虫蹿蹿0肠;此类论坛的举办较为少见。实验影像艺术不仅受到公开展示方面的限制&#虫蹿蹿0肠;同时也常被视为缺乏商业性&#虫蹿蹿0肠;并对主流保守文化价值构成挑战。一鹊组织此次论坛&#虫蹿蹿0肠;展现了在这一环境中持续推动实验影像艺术及其意义讨论的勇气&#虫蹿蹿0肠;尽管这一过程在一定程度上需要以相对低调的方式展开。
此次深论坛与2025年6月至7月间在中国内地四个城市进行的一次实地调研密切相关，该调研由91色情片 JNCCA发起并资助，调研覆盖中国大陆四座城市，重点考察近年来中国影像艺术的创作、展示与阐释。此次实地调研由新南威尔士大学朱迪思·尼尔森当代艺术讲席Paul Gladston (葛思谛)教授带队，一鹊与艺术评论家兼策展人林梓共同参与。
此次调研的研究成果，将为2026年在伦敦大学亚非学院画廊（SOAS Gallery）举办的大型综述性展览“不-/可见的光谱（In-/Visible Spectrums）”提供重要参考。该展览聚焦“华语圈”（涵盖中国内地、香港特别行政区、台湾及相关海外华人社群）当代影像艺术。展览策展团队由Paul Gladston (葛思谛)教授与Lynne Howarth-Gladston博士共同领衔，联合策展团队包括一鹊、林梓及香港中文大学Fank Vigneron教授。
The following text by Yique introducing the Shenzhen forum reflects discussions between Paul Gladston, Lin Zi and Yique during their field journey across mainland China:
In Chinese culture, emotions and judgments are often conveyed indirectly through allusion and ambiguity. To speak plainly is considered unwise; allegory and obscurity have become rhetorical mechanisms within structures of sociopolitical survival. Art, too, exists within these structures.
Art is often used as decoration, as symbol, as a gesture of allegiance, or as an extension of capital and ideology. Within such cultural soil, the value of art is never accorded an independent existence from society and politics; it takes effect and is made generally visible only when sanctioned by power and the market.
Yet, precisely within the fissures of this repressive logic, moving-image art has acquired a unique position. Because it is difficult to frame, to evaluate, to circulate, it resists assimilation into the established art market. Its “exclusion” paradoxically becomes its freedom. Like a spectral presence at the edges of visibility, it resounds quietly but persistently.
Our intention in curating this screening was not to construct a unified “picture of video art in China,” but rather to gather: to bring together a group of artists willing to continue speaking, observing, and expressing within complex circumstances. Their moving images are not intended simply to “narrate realities” but to disturb them.
They are like ghosts, drifting across the borders of systems—never fully visible, yet constantly unfolding. As art, moving images here are not just a medium, but a posture: they need not serve a function, nor seek consensus. They embody resistance, delay, and the flare of sparks in the cracks.
It is precisely within this “use of uselessness” that moving images become a gesture of defiance against banality and instrumentalization.
Video artworks presented at the forum are divided into three categories:
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These works whisper, like fragments of dreams. They do not rely on grand narratives, nor do they force direct political references. Instead, with delicate visual languages, they touch on emotions and states overlooked in the everyday. Here, the poetic is not a decorative pursuit of beauty, but a form of gentle resistance to reality: confronting certainty with ambiguity, piercing repression with metaphor.
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Across stretches of time, these works adopt “endurance” as a method—not as escape, but as a determination to persist. They unfold through repetition, prolongation, exhaustion, and bodily insistence, turning viewing into an exercise of shared resilience. They do not pursue immediate pleasure but confront the necessity of forbearance; they do not demand instant comprehension, but harbor eruptions within silence.
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“Provocation” here is not for the sake of direct incitement, but to unseal blocked circuits of perception. With intensity, irony, even discomfort, these works question assumed orders and forbidden zones. They do not seek to please the viewer; instead, they turn viewing into a moral and cognitive trial—challenging authority, breaking boundaries, and hurling images obliquely at that which “cannot be spoken.”
下文是一鹊为深圳论坛撰写的介绍&#虫蹿蹿0肠;内容源于葛思谛教授教授、林梓与一鹊此次在中国内地实地调研期间的讨论:
在中国文化中&#虫蹿蹿0肠;情感与判断往往通过间接、隐喻的路径传达。明言被视为不智&#虫蹿蹿0肠;寓言与模糊成为一种社会政治生存结构中的语言机制。艺术亦处在这些结构之中。
艺术常被用作装饰、象征、表态&#虫蹿蹿0肠;或作为资本与意识形态的延伸工具。在这一文化土壤中&#虫蹿蹿0肠;艺术的价值从未被赋予与社会和政治独立存在的地位&#虫蹿蹿0肠;而是需借助权力与市场的承认才得以生效并被普遍看到。
但也正是在这种压制性的逻辑缝隙中&#虫蹿蹿0肠;影像艺术反而获得了独特的位置。由于其装裱困难&#虫蹿蹿0肠;估值困难&#虫蹿蹿0肠;流通困难&#虫蹿蹿0肠;它难以被纳入既定的艺术市场之中。这种“被排除”反而成就了它的自由。它更像是一种边界幽灵&#虫蹿蹿0肠;不易被看见&#虫蹿蹿0肠;却持续作响。
我们所策划的此次放映&#虫蹿蹿0肠;并非意图建构某种“影像艺术的中国图景”&#虫蹿蹿0肠;而是一次汇聚&#虫蹿蹿1补;而是为了聚集一组愿意在复杂环境中继续发声、观察、表达的艺术家。他们的影像不仅仅是用来“讲述现实”&#虫蹿蹿0肠;而是用来扰动他们。
它像是一些幽灵&#虫蹿蹿0肠;穿行在制度的边界&#虫蹿蹿0肠;不完全可见&#虫蹿蹿0肠;却持续发生。作为艺术的影像&#虫蹿蹿0肠;在此&#虫蹿蹿0肠;不是媒介&#虫蹿蹿0肠;更是一种姿态&#虫蹿蹿1补;它无需服务于功能&#虫蹿蹿0肠;也不求达成共识。它是对抗、是延迟、是漏洞中的火光。
正是在这种“无用之用”中&#虫蹿蹿0肠;影像成为了对抗平庸与工具化的一种手势。
论坛展映的视频艺术作品分为叁类&#虫蹿蹿1补;
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这些作品如低语&#虫蹿蹿0肠;如残梦。它们不诉诸宏大叙述&#虫蹿蹿0肠;也不强行指涉政治&#虫蹿蹿0肠;而是以微妙的影像语言触摸日常中被忽略的情绪与状态。诗意&#虫蹿蹿0肠;在这里不是唯美的装饰&#虫蹿蹿0肠;而是对现实的一种柔性抵抗&#虫蹿蹿1产;是用暧昧对抗明确&#虫蹿蹿0肠;用隐喻穿透压抑。
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在时间的延展中&#虫蹿蹿0肠;这些作品选择“熬”作为方法一不是逃避&#虫蹿蹿0肠;而是一种持续存在的决心。它们表现重复、延宕、耗尽与身体性的坚持&#虫蹿蹿0肠;把观看变成一种共情的历练。它们不诉快感&#虫蹿蹿0肠;而直面忍耐的必然性&#虫蹿蹿1产;不求立刻被理解&#虫蹿蹿0肠;而选择沉默中潜伏的爆发。
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“挑”不是为了直接煽动&#虫蹿蹿0肠;而是为了打开被封闭的认知回路。这些作品以激烈、讽刺、甚至不适的形式&#虫蹿蹿0肠;质疑被默认的秩序与禁区。它们不试图讨好观众&#虫蹿蹿0肠;而是让观看变成一次道德与认知的试炼—挑战权威、打破界限&#虫蹿蹿0肠;向那个“不能被说的东西”斜射般地投掷影像。
Moments from the event
