Samantha Culp

In case you’re in Hong Kong, for ARTHK or otherwise, please stop by the Tulou Open House preview event on May 14 – this project has been in the works for quite a while, and we’re very excited to finally share it. Official press release to follow.

Tulou Open House: Project Preview in Hong Kong
Monday, May 14, 3 – 5pm
Afterschool Cafe
2/F, 17 Yun Ping Road, Causeway Bay
銅鑼灣恩平 道17號2樓
RSVP to Samantha Culp, samantha@newterritories.org

This Monday, please swing by Afterschool Cafe for a preview of the Tulou Open House project 2012 – a temporary, site-specific creative experiment and mini-conference taking place this June at a traditional Tulou (round earthen house) in Fujian Province. During this open-ended “expedition”, a diverse group of artists and scholars from greater China will explore the structure, symbolism, and everyday life of the Tulou as a laboratory for new projects and collaborations, a fresh lens for the concept of creative community, and a potential site for expansive future projects at the Tulou and beyond. The event will culminate in a public “Open House” event on the weekend of June 8-10, which is open to visitors and the local community alike, and will stage a program of talks, screenings, workshops, performances, guided tours, and artistic interventions.

On Monday, organizers Dana Wu (Friends of the Tulou) and Samantha Culp (New Territories Studio) will present an overview of the project, discuss its background and goals, and lead a conversation with HK-based Tulou participants and others who might like to join or learn more.

>>> QUESTIONS/CONTACT/MEDIA — 问题/联系/媒体 <<<
EMAIL: tulouopenhouse2012@gmail.com
TUMBLR: tulouopenhouse.tumblr.com

It’s a pretty insane week here in Shanghai, as the “back-to-school” activities of the artworld commence, but truly looking forward to an event I’ve helped organize for this Sunday evening: two recent works by Singaporean filmmaker Ho Tzu-Nyen, to be screened in association with my friends at Future Perfect, and hosted by the just-barely-soft-opened Shanghai branch of Café Sambal. (Many thanks to Cho Chong Gee of Sambal for graciously supporting the event!)

If you find yourself in Shanghai this Sunday, please do attend – it should be a relaxing, atmospheric end to a crazy week.

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Flying Bird from Samantha Culp on Vimeo.

Click below to play a slideshow of the Short Stays film stills and making of…

Link to set on Flickr.

Spotted near Huaihai Lu on an autumn afternoon.

These little guys appeared to be informal ambassadors for the upcoming 2010 Shanghai Expo… way cooler than the dreaded Haibao.

Shanghai Pups (上海小狗) from Samantha Culp on Vimeo.

My rambling notes from the week of SHContemporary are up at Artforum China; read the full article online here or in the vault. They didn’t end up using all of my pictures, however, so here are a few extras below…

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(Opposite House Blog, Sep 2009)

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(Opposite House Blog, Sep 2009)

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(Artforum China Online, Sep 2009)

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Where was I during the longest and most complete solar eclipse of my lifetime? On the Bund, in a rainstorm. If we didn’t see the sun, at least we saw the darkness.

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Taken from the window of a passing taxi a few weeks ago. Near impossible to believe, but somehow I had never passed it since moving to Beijing last summer (there was the requisite tourist visit years ago, of course). I kept expecting it to happen on some gloriously mundane day, and by the time it did, I had almost forgotten. But suddenly one evening, I looked up and was struck by a sight so familiar, so unreal, that I knew what it was before I knew.

It still seems stuck inside my mother’s little pink TV on the kitchen counter that summer. Like all things from the past, tiny and infinite at once.

So we went to Xinjiang.

Click here for full set.

Yesterday up at Gulou, I finally got around to buying the new albums by Hedgehog (just released) and Ourself Beside Me (came out in January)… Only to discover a few hours later via the salivating tweets of more media-savvy Beijingren that Google China had just launched its free mp3 service, which, of course, happens to feature both albums.

Oh well – still nice to support an actual music shop, and made an additional purchase of some Cui Zi’en (崔子恩) DVDs I haven’t seen around before. A few years ago at HKIFF, Thai director Pen-ek Ratanaruang described to me his first exposure to Cui’s films as something like this: “I put on the tape, and was watching it until I felt I had to turn it off, but then I couldn’t turn it off… it’s so bad that it’s fascinating, and then it becomes interesting.” Intense paraphrasing going on there, but it sticks in my mind as fairly apt. The weird, self-conscious crappiness in the aesthetic and tone of “Withered in the Blooming Season” is kind of amazing.

The Hedgehog and Ourself Beside Me albums are available for streaming and download below. (Legally! Though the concept of something that is both “digital” and “legal” in China is still confusing to me.) I’m still making my way through them…

Ourself Beside Me “Ourself Beside Me”
(Loving the Rundgren/Barrett-by-way-of-Lisa-Frank cover art; also I’m amazed that they actually did use ‘Ourself Beside Me’ as the official name on it – they had barely decided it while my THEME article on them was going to press)

Hedgehog “Blue Day Dreaming”
(I wish time machines existed just so that Hedgehog could travel back to 1993 to appear on 120 Minutes, and we could now watch it on grainy Youtube VHS capture…)

More pictures from the Vitamin Creative Space Beijing Mini-Marathon, 2pm Dec 31 2008 – 4am Jan 1 2009, are here.

(I also may have been blogged by Ai Weiwei here)

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As my last spurt of journalistic productivity before going on my present “sabbatical,” I have two pieces in the current issue of Theme Magazine (NYC). One is on Beijing band “Ourself Beside Me” (also known as “Ourselves Beside Me”; there is no definitive right spelling and I suspect the girls prefer it that way); the other on Thai television show “Dreamchaser.”

Profile: Ourself Beside Me, Theme Magazine, Issue 17, Nov/Dec/Jan 2008/2009 Eureka!

Theme: Dreamchaser, Theme Magazine, Issue 17, Nov/Dec/Jan 2008/2009 Eureka!

(Theme Magazine, Dec/Jan 2008/2009)
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(Artkrush, Sep 2008)

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(Purple Journal, Summer 2008)
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(TimeOut HK, Jun 2008)
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(TimeOut HK, Jun 2008)
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(Artkrush, Feb 2008)

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(Book, Asian Cultural Council, 2008)

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(Tomorrow Unlimited, Aug 2007)
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(Artkrush, Jul 2007)

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(Bidoun Magazine, Summer 2007)
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(Tomorrow Unlimited, Jun 2007)
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(Tomorrow Unlimited, Jun 2007)
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(Tomorrow Unlimited, Jun 2007)
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