Cultural Memory

International scientists and artists outline Chinese and European perspectives on burning and complex questions related to the collective and manifest thoughts and ideas of cultures, for such notions are of existential importance not only for the politics of memory, but also - and above all else - for artistic practice too.

Sun, 26.03.

11:00 Urban Spaces: Spaces of Memory and Oblivion

Jasper Becker (Journalist and Scientist, Beijing)

Huang Rui (Curator and Critic, Beijing)

Kang Min Jay (Professor of Architecture, Tamkang University, Taiwan) [tbc]

Mod.: Jochen Noth (Asia-Pacific-Institute for Management, Berlin)

China’s cities are changing continuously. They express the harsh relevance of a post-modern lifestyle whilst, at the same time, implementing the modernist gesture of the grand plan – a tabula rasa. The utopias of the great international architects, which they were never able to build in the West, have found both the ideological support and the necessary means in modern China. The loss of the organically evolved districts, which are being sacrificed to make way for such projects, can be considered symbolic of a great many tragedies. Even so, the question arises as to how it is possible to transform adequately historical places and locations that are no longer relevant to modern society or hardly seem able to offer suitable living space. At the panel discussion closing the conference, international experts and activists will discuss how both art and culture in particular can make an important contribution here.

13:00 Closing Discussion

Speakers:

Jasper Becker

He studied sinology at the Mill Hill School and did his finals at Goldsmith’s College at the University of London. He also studied at Munich University and later gained a post-graduate diploma in modern Chinese at the University of London. He works as a correspondent for diverse English-language newspapers in China and Hong-Kong and has written a few standard works on recent Chinese history (The Chinese and Hungry Ghosts, Mao’s Secret Famine).

Website: http://www.jasperbecker.com

Huang Rui

Artist, designer and journalist. He lived and worked in Japan from 1984 to 2001. After returning to Beijing, he became one of the first artists to establish both a gallery and a studio there in the now internationally famous 798 Art District in Beijing, where he also curated the inter-disciplinary Dashanzi International Art Festival.

Kang Min Jay

studied town planning and landscape architecture in the USA and is now lecturer at the Tamkang University in Taipei. He is interested in the interplay between artistic and social activities in urban environments and the cultural landscape both as a cultural process and as an area for natural growth and urban design.

Jochen Nothstudied literature and political science in Heidelberg and Paris. He lived and worked as a journalist and lecturer in Beijing for many years and is on the board of stadtkultur international , a Berlin association promoting cultural exchanges between Berlin and Beijing.