艺术影片放映｜一日距离 & 阿拉伯婆婆纳 Art Video Screening｜One day distance & Veronica persica

Art Video Screening

One day distance & Veronica persica

Screening & Artist HAN Qian On-Site Discussion

One day distance

Single channel 4k video, color, stereo channel, 34’01’’, 2024

In this work, the artist walks from Houyangjia to Niuzhuang, wearing a pair of high heels her grandmother never wore in her lifetime and her most commonly worn dress. In the anachronistic heels and the pain of continuous silence, the scenery at this moment becomes a silent witness to what was once muted. The geographical changes of reality reflect the gaze of imagination and invisible history, while the back-and-forth roaming of the music embodies the thoughts of "her", whether far or near.

This twenty-eight-kilometer journey begins at sunrise at six in the morning and ends in the sunset glow at six in the evening. The distance of this single day is that from Houyangjia in Tai'an County to Niuzhuang in Haicheng; it is also the distance from the artist's grandmother's birthplace in the 1930s to the home of her future husband, whom she had never met. As she embarks on this journey, she has yet no imagination of the Central Plains over a thousand kilometers away, nor can she foresee the diverse fates her family will face, scattered or lingering in various places hereafter.

Veronica persica

Single channel 4k video, color, stereo channel, 15’38’’, 2023

Veronica persica is native to the Caucasus region, located at the border of Western Asia and Eastern Europe. This plant gradually spread from the Caucasus to Europe, Britain, Asia, and China... carried by the wind and migrated by human behavior.

In China, it is listed as an invasive foreign species. It was first discovered and recorded in 1933 and harvested from Wuhan, Hubei. This plant also grew next to the artist's grandmother's former house. After the house was demolished, the artist walked through the ruins of the old house, and unexpectedly found this little blue flower that had accompanied her childhood memories, and still blooming where it once was.

In this semi-fictional film, the artist interweaves her grandmother's journey as a first-generation immigrant to Wuhan's Qingshan due to industrial construction with the journey of Veronica persica. By reorganizing records of Veronica persica from different periods, regions, and countries, the main narrative thread is formed by the morphological description of this plant. The perspective of wandering through close-ups of the figure's body and the landscape along the way creates subtle differences and connections.

Artist｜Director

Han Qian (b. 1993, Wuhan) graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. She currently lives and works between Wuhan and Kunming.

Her practice spans video, installation, performance, and printmaking. Over the years, she has been concerned with time, memory, and the material traces and historical residues that adhere to them. Departing from micro-histories embedded in family narratives and industrial migration, her work traces the movements and settlements of several generations across rapidly shifting landscapes—re-examining questions of identity, geopolitical belonging, and the uneven textures of historical experience.

At the center of her practice is a care for individuals situated in particular coordinates of time and space, whose lives have been submerged beneath structural narratives and transformations. Through fragile materials, residual bodily gestures, and overlooked ruptures, she enters spaces obscured by dominant narratives. By reorganizing subtle traces and hidden clues, she seeks to render visible those existences that persist in the interstices.

Presenter

Alice CHEN,  artist. All of her works in the art field will be carried out under the overarching title of "Positive Art Research Center," whether in the form of creating personal works, initiating projects, curating, or coordinating. The important collective art projects she initiated and curated include: “Project Terrace @1431 Huaihai Middle Road" from 2020 to 2022 and "Is Shan Shui Useful Today?" from 2023 to 2025.  Her personal work Decision!  And the documents of "Project Terrace @1431 Huaihai Middle Road” is collected by Power Station of Art in China and Centre Pompidou in France. Important exhibitions she has participated in include:“Post-Sense Sensibility" in Beijing in 1999, “Alors, la Chine?" in 2003 and “China, A New Generation of Artists” in 2024 both at Centre Pompidou in France.

One spring evening that felt almost like summer, I visited Qian Han at her studio residency in the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.

She had bought a mango cake to share with me: a cake composed of three layers—skin, flesh, and pit—whose color, aroma, and taste all uncannily resembled a real mango. Made with actual mango flesh, it was a mango painstakingly recreated in the form of a mango cake. There, in a land where mangoes do not grow, glowing softly against the backdrop of the Seine outside her studio window, this “mango” seemed to radiate its own light.

“Seeing the large through the small” was my first impression of Han’s moving-image works. If I were to describe her approach, it would be this: she begins with herself, her family, her hometown, or specific individuals and situations, and weaves a complex tension between historical archives, personal research, critical reflection, and writing. The resulting works carry the warmth of Han’s own sincere, delicate, and sensitive emotional world, while simultaneously revealing the deeper structures of history, geography, and the forces that shape our times.

It is often the concrete and particular things that strike our hearts most deeply, preventing us from drifting into abstraction. I am grateful to Qian Han and to her work. That evening, I encountered the artist herself, listening to her stories and seeing her presence. Through her films, I felt I could almost sense the heat of her hometown, Wuhan—the breeze brushing against her grandmother’s silver hair and the blue blossoms of speedwell flowers. The image of the bride in Han’s work, suspended between leaving her mother's home and arriving at her husband's family, and the sound of her seemingly resolute footsteps, continue to return to my mind.

Who, after all, would go to such lengths to use a real mango to create a perfect imitation of a mango?

Only an artist, we concluded.

—— Alice Chen 2026.6

😊 Each admission ticket comes with a €7 bookstore voucher, redeemable on the day of the event. Valid for one month, it applies to all book purchases — merchandise and beverages excluded.

· Viewing Guidelines ·

1. Tickets are non-refundable, non-exchangeable, and cannot be canceled once purchased.

2. Please arrive at least 10 minutes before the screening starts.

3. The venue will be cleared at 19:00 on the screening day for setup.

4. Recording the screen is strictly prohibited during the screening. Please set your phone to silent mode and minimize movement in and out of the venue.

*Veronica persica Poster Design : Cheng Yinhe

——————

「艺术影片放映」

一日距离

&

阿拉伯婆婆纳

放映 & 艺术家韩倩现场交流

在这件作品中，艺术家穿着祖母在世时从未穿过的一双高跟鞋和最常穿的裙子从后杨家走到牛庄。在不合时宜的高跟鞋与持续沉默的疼痛中，此时的风景是曾经沉默的见证者。现实的地理变化折射的是想象的目光和不可见的历史，在音乐的来回漫游中是“她”或远或近的的思绪。

这段二十八公里的路程从早上六点的清晨日出出发，结束在傍晚六点的落日余晖中。这一日的距离是从台安县后杨家到海城牛庄的距离，也是艺术家祖母30年代的出生地到她素未谋面即将嫁入的丈夫家的距离。在她踏上这段路程时，还未对一千多公里之外的中原有所想象，也无法得知在此后她将和家人散落或停留在各地不同的命运。

阿拉伯婆婆纳，也被称为波斯婆婆纳，来自位于西亚及东欧交界处的高加索地区。在风的携带和人类的迁徙中，这种植物慢慢地从高加索地区蔓延至欧洲、英国、亚洲、中国…

在中国它被列入为外来入侵物种，首次发现并记载于1933年，采自湖北武汉。这种植物也生长在艺术家祖母的旧宅旁，直至房屋拆毁，家园成墟，艺术家发现这种伴随她童年记忆的蓝色小花仍在原来的地方盛开。

在这部半虚构的影片中，艺术家将祖母因为工业建设迁移至武汉青山、成为当地第一代移民的旅程和阿拉伯婆婆纳的旅程编织在一起。透过重组不同时期和国家地区对于阿拉伯婆婆纳的记载，以植物形态学的描述方式构成了旁白主线，同时与画面中人物身体特写与在沿途风景中游走的视角相互嵌套，产生了微妙的差异与关联。

艺术家｜导演

韩倩，1993 年出生于武汉。先后毕业于罗马美术学院与巴黎国立高等美术学院。现生活、工作于武汉与昆明。

韩倩的创作结合了录像、装置、行为、版画等多种媒介。长期以来，她持续关注时间、记忆，以及黏附于其上的物质痕迹与历史残余。她的作品从嵌入家族叙事与工业迁徙的微观历史线索出发，追索数代人在剧变地景中的迁徙与定居，以此重新审视身份、地缘归属以及历史经验中复杂而不均质的纹理。

其创作的核心在于对特定时空坐标下个体的关怀，这些个体的生命往往淹没在结构性叙事与变革之下。她以脆弱的材料、残余的身体姿态与被忽视的断裂为入口，进入那些被主流叙述所遮蔽之处。并借由对细微痕迹与隐藏线索的重新组织，使那些处于夹缝中的存在重新显现。

推荐人

Alice 陈，艺术家。Alice 陈所有艺术范畴内的工作都会在“正向艺术研究会”这个总标题下展开，无论是以个人作品创作、项目发起、活动策划组织等不同形式。其发起并策动的集体艺术项目有：2020年-2022的「露台计划之淮海中路1431号」以及 2023-2025的「今天“山水”有用吗？”」。其个人作品《决定！》以及此作品附赠的“露台计划之淮海中路1431号”文献资料收藏于中国的上海当代艺术博物馆以及法国的蓬皮杜艺术中心。参加过的重要展览有1999年的北京的“后感性”，以及法国的蓬皮杜艺术中心举办于2003年的「那么 中国?」以及2024年的「目：中国境象」展览等。

一个恍如夏日般的春日傍晚，我去拜访了韩倩位于巴黎艺术城的驻地空间。

她买了一个芒果蛋糕和我分享：一个拥有果皮果肉果核三层结构，从色彩到香气和味道都很像芒果的，用真芒果肉去复刻了芒果的芒果蛋糕。 这“芒果”在不产芒果之地，在她工作室的塞纳河窗景的衬托下闪闪地发着光。

“小中见大”是我对韩倩影像作品的第一重感知。尝试解析其方法：以自身、家人、故土或具体的人物事态为切入点与创作重心，在历史档案与个人研究、思辨及写作之间编织出一种纵横交错的张力。最终呈现的作品，既承载着韩倩自身那份真挚、细腻而敏感的个人情感温度，又无不渗透和揭示着大时代与地缘脉络的深层构造。

往往是那些具体的东西深深拨动了我们的心弦，让我们不至于坠入空泛。感谢韩倩和她的作品，那个傍晚，我看到和听到了她本人，我也通过她的作品仿佛感受到她的家乡武汉的炙热，拂过她的祖母银发和婆婆纳蓝色小花的微风。韩倩作品里那处于离开娘家和抵达夫家之间的新娘形象，那听似坚定的脚步声，也总是时常在我脑海浮现。

到底是谁想到要费那么大的劲去用真芒果做一个如假包换的芒果呢？那人一定是个艺术家。 这是我和韩倩的结论。

——推荐人 Alice 陈 2026.6

😊 入场时可凭本票券兑换一张价值 7 欧元的购书券。购书券自活动当日起一个月内有效，可用于购买所有图书（不含周边商品、饮品）。

· 观影小贴士 ·

1. 入场券一经售出不可退票、换票、取消；

2. 请在放映开场前10分钟入场；

3. 放映当日19:00空间将清场进行场地布置，早到须在场外等候；

4. 观影过程中禁止屏摄，请把手机调至静音状态，尽量减少进出。

*《阿拉伯婆婆纳》海报设计：程音和