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Jersey Arts Trust is offering six artists the opportunity to work with internationally celebrated psaligraphy (paper cut) artists - Professor Xiaoguang Qiao from China and Karen Bit Vejle from Norway, who will be visiting Jersey in October 2016 with ‘Paper Dialogues’ - their exquisite exhibition of paper cut art.
The six selected artists will take part in an intensive workshop with Professor Xiaoguang Qiao and Karen Bit Vejle, and will be paid to create their own paper-cut pieces of work. They will also be responsible for sharing their new skills with leading Island schools, where they will ignite a huge community outreach programme where local school children and members of the public will have the chance to make their own paper cut art and have it displayed in their own exhibition (‘Paper Talks’) in 2017.
Development
Whilst in Jersey, the International artists will provide an open access workshop and lead the starting point of the creation of the ‘Jersey Dragon’ – a piece of art which will be a permanent mascot for the project and the relationships formed between the jurisdictions. The six artists will lead the continuation of the ‘Jersey Dragon’ community project that will see Jersey exploring its own heritage as well as embracing those of our partner nations.
Community Exhibition – ‘Paper Talks’
All of the work created (by artists, students and the community) will be exhibited in a celebratory showcase in 2017 titled ‘Paper Talks’. The exhibition will tell the story of the process and relations that have formed as well as what has been discovered through the work.
Dates and Artist Specification
To take part in the project, artists must be exclusively available from 10th to 17th October and then have availability from October until February to complete their work and run the workshops in schools. Whilst the discipline of the Artist is not specified, they need to be able to produce paper cut work. The artists need to be experienced practitioners with a firm grasp of their craft are able to produce work to a specified brief and ideally have past experience of delivering workshops to young people.
Terms
Each artist will receive a fee and materials.
Upon accepting a place on the project, the artists will be committed to taking part in the professional workshop and all of the community activities. They will also be required to produce their own paper-cut pieces of work that will be exhibited in 2017. The rights to the work created will remain with the artists, but they will be committed to it being available to the Jersey Arts Trust for exhibition.
All applicants should send their artistic CV, along with images of at least 3 recent pieces of work, to Alice Bravery at the JAT by Thursday 1st September. Her e-mail is alice@arts.je
For details of the fee or any more information prospective applicants should contact the Trust at alice@arts.je or on 01534 617521.
About ‘Paper Dialogues’
Paper Dialogues is an artistic collaboration between Professor Xiaoguang Qiao from China and Karen Bit Vejle from Scandinavia. In this project, Qiao and Bit have each created a large-scale paper cut where they have interpreted their own culture and history in order to present it to each other and to the audience.
On display for the first time in Great Britain, the exhibition will be housed in a temporary gallery space within the Assembly Rooms of the St. Helier Town Hall. The paper cuts will be encased in glass with lights shining through them, casting shadows on the walls and floors. ‘Paper Dialogues’ has already been exhibited to great critical acclaim in Beijing, Shanghai and Norway.
About Professor Xiaoguang Qiao and Karen Bit Vejle
Karen Bit Vejle
Karen Bit Vejle was born in Denmark in 1958 but has lived in Trondheim Norway since 1985. In her early career she was employed as a journalist at the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, and worked as a project manager on one of Norway’s most successful TV series. Karen made paper cuts images as a secret hobby and hid her paper cuts under her rugs for nearly 40 years. In November 2008 a colleague discovered her work and her first show opened at The National Museum of Decorative Arts in Norway. Now Bit’s work has international recognition and in just a few years her art has spread throughout Scandinavia and all the way to the USA and China. Her artistic work spans from the travelling exhibition Scissors for a Brush to commissioned work for several renowned international companies, such as Hermès and Georg Jensen.
Professor Xiaoguang Qiao
Xiaoguang Qiao was born in Hebei China in 1957. He is a professor and deputy dean of the cultural Department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts Beijing, China and Director of the Intangible Cultural Research Centre. He is inspired by ancient Chinese archaeological material, music and scenes of contemporary life. He is also interested in western literary traditions such as Walt Whitman’s poetry and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.
An Example of Xiaoguang Qiao’s international collaborations is his City Windows project: The Chicago/Beijing Panoramic Paper Cuts exhibition at The Field Museum features Chicago. It featured the original paper cuts created by Professor Xiaoguang Qiao for the Chicago O’Hare Airport project. The entire work consists of fifteen panels (each is 51 x 24”). One group depicted iconic Chicago landmarks such as Navy Pier and the Willis Tower, the other group iconic Beijing scenes such as the Forbidden City and the Bird’s Nest from the 2008 Olympics.
