Panel Statement

Panel:  @China, Virtually Speaking: A Virtual Roundtable Discussion on Emergent Practices in China

Home­Shop began as a store­front res­i­dence and artist ini­tia­tive in Bei­jing, 2008. Lo­cated in the cen­tre of Bei­jing on one of its old hu­tong al­ley­ways, the space and its win­dow front are used as the be­gin­ning points from which to ex­am­ine ways of re­lay­ing be­tween pub­lic and pri­vate, the com­mer­cial and pure ex­change as such. Artists, de­sign­ers and thinkers come to­gether via mul­ti­ple, in­ter­wo­ven se­ries of small-scale ac­tiv­i­ties, in­ter­ven­tions and doc­u­men­tary ges­tures, processes by which Home­Shop serves as an open plat­form to ques­tion ex­ist­ing mod­els of eco­nomic and artis­tic pro­duc­tion. Daily life, work and the com­mu­nity be­come ex­plo­rations of mi­crop­o­lit­i­cal pos­si­bil­ity, and of work­ing to­gether.
homeshopbeijing.org/blog

•  Michael Eddy is a Cana­dian artist who since 2004 has been liv­ing abroad—in Japan, Ger­many and cur­rently in China. His work has been ex­hib­ited through­out North Amer­ica, Eu­rope and Asia. With a base in pho­tog­ra­phy, he works across var­i­ous media in­clud­ing per­for­mance, paper, writ­ing and in­stal­la­tion and fre­quently in col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­ers, the most long term of which is the col­lab­o­ra­tive trio Knowles Eddy Knowles (along with Rob Knowles based in Lon­don and Jon Knowles based in Montréal, no re­la­tion). He is cur­rently work­ing with Home­Shop as a space and as a group of peo­ple work­ing across dis­ci­plines. From 2008–2010 he worked with Vi­t­a­min Cre­ative Space at the shop in Bei­jing, China, pro­gram­ming and co­or­di­nat­ing pro­jects and edit­ing pub­li­ca­tions. These pro­jects have often dealt with the “daily life” of art works. Michael stud­ied at NSCAD in Canada from 2001 to 2004 and at the Staedelschule in Ger­many from 2005 to 2008.
• Elaine W. HO, (Bei­jing) works be­tween the realms of time-based art, urban prac­tice and de­sign, using mul­ti­ple vo­cab­u­lar­ies to ask ques­tions about how users and ob­jects in­ter­twine with the mi­crop­ol­i­tics of every­day life. Often work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tively, her videos, in­stal­la­tions and other in­ter­ven­tions focus on al­ter-pos­si­bil­i­ties of an in­ti­mate, net­worked pro­duc­tion. One of her cur­rent en­deav­ours is Home­Shop, a store­front space turned home base for in­ter­ac­tions with the local com­mu­nity and the sur­round­ing pub­lic space. Via the or­gan­i­sa­tion of col­lab­o­ra­tive events and work­shops, re­search and field record­ings, Home­Shop and its in­de­pen­dent jour­nal pub­li­ca­tion WEAR seek to de­velop an open plat­form that ex­am­ines re­la­tion­al­ity as a tool tied to but out­side of other eco­nomic modes of pro­duc­tion. Elaine is also a fre­quent con­trib­u­tor at iwishicoulddescribeittoyoubetter.net
• Emi Ue­mura has been work­ing on the pro­jects and fes­tive spaces where peo­ple share (or do not share) ex­pe­ri­ences, knowl­edge and food. Often these pro­jects ad­dress so­cial and po­lit­i­cal is­sues sur­round­ing food pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion. Cur­rently she is work­ing on farm­ing and is in­ter­ested in how it shapes time and ap­pli­ca­tion of works. She stud­ied An­thro­pol­ogy in Saint Mary’s Uni­ver­sity, Canada, and has cur­rently set­tled in Bei­jing since 2010.