Cao Minghao and Chen Jianjun, Back to Mu Village's Fairy Big Lake, 2024. Installation view at Aranya Art Center North. Image courtesy of the artists. Credits Sun Shi.
Artists Cao Minghao 曹明浩 and Chen Jianjun 陈建军 will be in residence at Studio Voltaire from June to August 2025.
This residency is supported by the British Council's Connections Through Culture Programme with kind assistance from Schoeni Projects.
Water System Project is a long-term interdisciplinary collaboration combining art and ecology to drive community engagement and explore the relationship between people and water systems.
Since 2015, Minghao and Jianjun have been researching and working closely with communities to understand how water shapes landscapes, climates and human experiences. Their work focuses on overlooked environmental and social issues, using creative and participatory methods to highlight the deep connections between people and their surroundings.
The artists focus on reimagining places that are often seen as abandoned or in decline, uncovering their hidden stories and potential. Through a site-specific and collaborative approach, the project examines how water systems such as rivers, lakes and other bodies of water reflect environmental and social changes over time.
Through their residency, the artists will bring Water System Project to the UK for the first time. Minghao and Jianjun will explore London's waterways and urban landscapes, connecting their past research in China with new experiences in the UK. By working with local communities and audiences, the artists will create opportunities for dialogue and exchange between different cultural and environmental contexts.
As part of the residency, the artists will host a Black Tent Meeting, a series of collaborative discussions and creative gatherings which have previously taken place in cities including Vancouver (Canada), Kassel (Germany), Aranya (China) and Shanghai (China). The London gathering will focus on the lived experiences of local communities, addressing ecological and social sustainability in a way that connects personal stories to broader global issues.