Listen carefully and hear the echo of nature
You need to go in, put the headphone on and, really, listen — to know what’s going on at the exhibition “Echo: Greetings from Nature and Urban Space — An Overture,” at the MoCA Pavilion, part of the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art in the People’s Park.
A Sino-Swiss collaborative project, the exhibition of sound art is built on the 2019 Swiss exhibit “Echo: The Mountain Calls Back” by the Swiss Alpine Museum, echoing its approach and structure while adapting it to the Chinese context by inviting local artists to participate, find their own echoes, and locate points of resonance between Switzerland and China.
The overture to the show consists of 16 sound artworks — the Swiss half, by Christian Zehnder taken from the Swiss Alpine Museum’s 2019 exhibition, and the Chinese half, selected from “Mapping Echoes,” an open-call program organized by the current exhibition’s co-sponsor: The Paper. (See more in Chinese at https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_102958)
"Creux du Van, Van de Travers" by Christian Zehnder
The local works were produced by a mix of artists, professionals, and members of the public, enriching their content while expanding the exhibition’s diversity and possibilities.
Throughout the recordings — whether they are an artistic creation or simply sounds collected from everyday life — the theme of “echo,” as a much-interpreted subject in Eastern and Western art, humanities, and philosophy, is reduced to a more direct and pure state.
The auditory experience is further enhanced by the scenography assisted by Frank Dittmann at both venues, creating a multi-dimensional experience.
The exhibition will feature MoCA Pavilion as the main venue. An experimental micro-museum, its glass-sheet windows integrate the artistic works on display into the city around them. The exhibition’s secondary venue is in an underground tunnel currently under the management of the “Xian Xia Lai Co-Op.”
"Sound of the Clock and the Bell in the Custom House, Shanghai" by Terence LLoren
The tunnel is a natural echo factory, and the auditory experiences it offers, combined with the spatial properties of the sound art on display there, add new, heterogenous imaginaries to the overall exhibition.
During the exhibition, the curatorial team will launch more educational activities, such as “Echo Walking Tour,” “The Art and Science of Echo: A Family Workshop” and “Echo Concert.”
Hope that, in this post-pandemic era, people can reconnect and greet each other again through these echoes.
Exhibition info
Dates: Through June 6
Venue 1: MoCA Pavilion, Gate 7 of People’s Park
Hours: Daily, 10am-9pm
Address: 215 Nanjing Rd W.
Venue 2: Xian Xia Lai Co-Op
Hours: Tue-Sun, 10am-8pm
Address: No.25, 700 Xianxia Rd
