East Wind

Meng Zhang is an emerging artist, born in Inner Mongolia, China. She began studying in Adelaide in 2010. She is an observer and recorder, using different ways to record what she has observed in daily life. Meng is fascinated by recording the unexpected, unintended and something said by the material. To observe, to record, to reflect, to consider retrospectively and then to save the unintended and improvised, to save voice from materials and to save the details of daily life. Meng broad-ranging practice involves printmaking, photography, video, drawing, sculptural and installation.

“During COVID 19, as the inability to move, it allowed me to establish intimate feeling with the surroundings. Through observation and recording, I tried to slow down and to reconnect with the soil, with the space and time. The work made by series observations of my backyard walnut tree. The walnut tree growth and fruits. The parrot came to taste the walnut. Then everything falls. I grow up in a rural society which is a society without a written language. The influence from rural society imprinted in my mind and rooted in my blood. The work is my poem, written by fabric and thread.”

“During COVID-19, I found my practice thrown into confusion over what to make and how to make, confided by government restrictions, and a lack of resources, I was continually thinking of what it meant for the future of artists and how I would adapt. I had to make-do with what was available.

My grandparents on my dad’s side raised 15 of their kids in Long Thanh Vietnam, and my grandparents on my mum’s side raised 9 of their kids in Saigon Vietnam. By the time my uncles and aunts were 5, they were sent to the bustling markets to haggle and buy food for the family. Sometimes they had enough access to food, and sometimes they had to make-do with what was available.

Many of the Vietnamese dishes I grew up eating, such as cháo long, bún bò huế, and phở bò, were made humbly through resourcefulness, using many different parts of the animal, a way to feed the whole family and not waste food. Throughout lockdown, my mum spent hours in the kitchen preparing dinner for the family, making use of what we had and using the time to reconnect. I spent most of the lockdown with my parents, listening to what they ate growing up, and again, what life used to be like in Vietnam pre 1975.”

“Ruột heo kho cải chua  (pig intestines and fermented greens) is a dish my sister and I love. It was one of the dishes, and experiences, that lead me to learning about my Otherness, how to live in two worlds, and not ever feeling truly accepted by both.

As a young girl, I quickly learnt how to hide my Vietnamese culture when at school, my strategy of not being teased about being Asian, was to publicly reject what my parents had taught me before anyone could mention it. In front of my classmates, I also agreed that my mum making intestine stew was disgusting! But at home, I enjoyed it and ate it happily, thanking my mum every time she made it.

This work investigates the gut and brain connection, and the importance of gut function as a link to physical and mental health.  What is the value of food, memories, and family when considering the importance of guts? It takes guts to watch your kids grow up being ashamed of their own heritage. Thank you Ba and Me, for giving me the guts to come back.”

“Ruột heo kho cải chua  (pig intestines and fermented greens) is a dish my sister and I love. It was one of the dishes, and experiences, that lead me to learning about my Otherness, how to live in two worlds, and not ever feeling truly accepted by both.

As a young girl, I quickly learnt how to hide my Vietnamese culture when at school, my strategy of not being teased about being Asian, was to publicly reject what my parents had taught me before anyone could mention it. In front of my classmates, I also agreed that my mum making intestine stew was disgusting! But at home, I enjoyed it and ate it happily, thanking my mum every time she made it.

This work investigates the gut and brain connection, and the importance of gut function as a link to physical and mental health.  What is the value of food, memories, and family when considering the importance of guts? It takes guts to watch your kids grow up being ashamed of their own heritage. Thank you Ba and Me, for giving me the guts to come back.”

Space Horse was created with the mixed medium of reflective tapes, printing paper and acrylic paints on canvas. Due to the concept of this work and the reflective materials applied, an alternative and better way of viewing this work could be using a phone camera with flash light on or light up a torch in a dark environment. In regard to the East Wind exhibition at Nexus, this work was a response to one of the questions on how the artist looks at the still ongoing Covid 19 pandemic that was first discovered at the end of 2019. Since then the human beings as whole have found themselves living in an ever perilous age and were overwhelmed by all sorts of uncertainties and panics. Near 3 million souls so far were lost in this wide spread disease. This work is dedicated to the people died of this disease. The conceptual formation is based on the Tibetan archaic beliefs that after people past away, their souls will be carried by the horse to the peaceful realm and protected by the four majestical creatures. The philosophical interpretation of the iconography tells that the horse represents the space. The four other animals represent four basic elements in the space, tiger representing the Wind, eagle owl representing the Fire, serpent representing the Water and snow lion representing the Earth. These basic elements are vital for the survival of those who are alive, and therefore still are the best symbolic offerings for the deceased, whose wondering souls need our solace and commemoration.

“On the 16th of January 2020, my mother and I was fortunate to return to China three days before the outbreak of Coronavirus. This epidemic has brought the entire society into a drastic change physically, mentally and virtually. It accelerated the dependence of obtaining information through network, we result with overloaded information unable to process.

The form of this exhibition is quite different. It breaks through the fixed scope of exhibition and creates a wider scope of exhibition space through the way of information and logistics transmission, forming an invisible span, allowing the works and the audience to approach different senses, leading on the discussion on distance between the works and the audience through three layers of different forms (interaction, reaction, and coexistence). I intend to discuss the current social phenomenon through the works, and introduce the other side of the dialogue into the exhibition hall, so as to create a new rendezvous space.”

“On the 16th of January 2020, my mother and I was fortunate to return to China three days before the outbreak of Coronavirus. This epidemic has brought the entire society into a drastic change physically, mentally and virtually. It accelerated the dependence of obtaining information through network, we result with overloaded information unable to process.

The form of this exhibition is quite different. It breaks through the fixed scope of exhibition and creates a wider scope of exhibition space through the way of information and logistics transmission, forming an invisible span, allowing the works and the audience to approach different senses, leading on the discussion on distance between the works and the audience through three layers of different forms (interaction, reaction, and coexistence). I intend to discuss the current social phenomenon through the works, and introduce the other side of the dialogue into the exhibition hall, so as to create a new rendezvous space.”

“This pandemic of Covid-19 gave me a chance to explore new fields of art making. Under the lockdown, I couldn’t access to my studio for several months. I decided to create something that can be appreciated on a digital screen with computer, instead of making images on a large canvas with paints. Creative coding invented a new process of creating an image. Without depicting visible elements of real objects, it allows us to make complex visual effects that cannot be created in analog manipulation techniques.

My works revitalised the ideas of the Rinpa school, which is one of the Japanese traditional painting schools and whose style was established in the 17th century during the Edo period. I believe their works reflect Japanese notions towards nature and life as an image in the most sophisticated manner. Their works feature a lot of negative spaces and are compositionally highly controlled and decorative. The brush strokes are fast and rough, which creates beauty from imperfection in their images.”