Supporting Studio Voltaire: Cao Minghao and Chen Jianjun Residency

Artists-in-residence Cao Minghao and Chen Jianjun present Black Tent Meeting #6: Currents of Kinship, the sixth iteration of their Black Tent Meeting series of events exploring the transformative potential of watershed ecosystems.

First presented at documenta 15, the Black Tent Meeting is an interdisciplinary framework that invites artists and audience members into an open assembly. The sessions discuss how waterscapes can reframe and reactivate existing resources, transforming situated knowledge into visible, connected and potentially transformative practices. 

In this iteration, the artists will link the waterscapes of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau to other regions across the world, drawing attention to kinships between watersheds across planetary space. The assembly will collectively address the crisis of disappearing waters, resist anthropocentric narratives, and re-examine the ethical foundations of our shared existence.

The event will feature talks, discussions, audience Q&A and a screening session. Guest speakers include Cooking Sections (Alon Schwabe & Daniel Fernández Pascual), Kathryn Weir, Saba Khan, all chaired by Dot Zhihan Jia (Studio Voltaire).

It will be conducted in both English and Chinese. Light refreshments will be served.

Artists-in-residence Cao Minghao and Chen Jianjun will present works-in-progress reflecting on their two-month residency in London at Studio Voltaire.

Through their residency, the artists are bringing their long term project Water System Project to the UK for the first time. Minghao and Jianjun have been exploring the UK’s waterways and urban landscapes, connecting their past research in China together with their new experiences in the UK.

Water System Project is a long-term interdisciplinary collaboration that combines art and ecology to drive community engagement and explore the relationship between people and water systems.

Since 2015, Cao and Chen 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.