The Ground brings the knowledge developed by Tarek Atoui over six years of research on practices of architecture, traditional music and agriculture in the Pearl River Delta in China, that inspired him ideas on how to work with rhythm, improvisation and space, together with the experimentations of instrument-makers and musicians, in the form of performances, compositions and listening spaces.
The Ground is a composition which takes inspiration from the long-term observations of human practices within farming and agricultural context of the Pearl River Delta.
Like the cycles of soil that recovers from fertilizer, The Ground has no beginning and no end.
Its pulses and rhythms are the Mirrored Gardens’ traditional brick walls. Its timbers and textures are its piles of rocks and the aggregates that form these rocks.
Its sound libraries and samples are compost. Some were cut and collected over years, others are unused footage and recordings from past projects.
Its instruments are the swamps, the stones, and the wood of this place. Flutes share air the way ponds do with water, analogue pedals and electronic software filter and distribute sound the way farming spiral structures support plants.
Its space is the neighborhood’s fish ponds and their invisible connections. And like an aging tree in the bottom of a river, it is a space to invite musicians and artists to use it as a record, a bow, an orchestra. A studio, a garden or a temporary place to cultivate sound.
Tarek Atoui
[研究背景]
塔里克·阿图伊研究过程中的手稿。 A Sketch by Tarek Atoui during the research process in Pearl River Delta.
Combining visual, tactile and aural modes of perceiving sound, The Ground is a variable sonic space, the result of six years of travel the artist undertook in the Pearl River Delta. During this time, Atoui recorded his observations of contemporary and traditional agricultural, architectural and musical practices from the region in a booklet that he then shared with craftsmen and instrument-makers to respond to. The resulting instruments were set up by Atoui to play separately and autonomously at exhibitions first in Guangzhou and later in Singapore, where various artists and musicians were invited to respond to both the forms and sounds of the work.
[“地面”的演变] [Evolution of The Ground]
塔里克·阿图伊：地面，镜花园，2017年9月至12月 Tarek Atoui: The Ground, presented at Mirrored Gardens from September to December 2017
2017年秋，《地面》以展览和一系列演出的形式首次呈现于广州镜花园。
The Ground debuted with an exhibition and a series of performances at Mirrored Gardens in the fall of 2017.
The Ground: From the Land to the Sea，新加坡国立大学当代艺术中心，2018年3月至6月 The Ground: From the Land to the Sea, presented at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore from March to June 2018
It continued with a series of performances and an exhibition titled The Ground: From the Land to the Sea that took place at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore in 2018.
“The Ground”，第58届威尼斯双年展，威尼斯，2019 Installation views of The Ground, presented at 58th Venice Biennale in 2019
In 2018 and 2019, the piece was set up as part of Composing/Public/Space, Tarek Atoui’s research platform at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. At the Venice Biennale 2019, The Ground was then presented as a composition and listening space, where Atoui finalized the composition for The Ground based on the accumulations of previous iterations of the project, while performances were organized during the Biennale and later that year during The Ground sessions at the Palazzo Grassi & Teatrino Palazzo Grassi. The same composition and listening space has since been presented in a different configuration at the inaugural exhibition of the Pinault Collection, Bourse de Commerce in Paris, France in 2021.
《地面》于塔里克· 阿图伊“Cycles in 11”展览现场，沙迦基金会，2020年9月至2021年4月 Installation views of The Ground, 2020 in the exhibition Tarek Atoui: Cycles in 11 presented at Sharjah Art Foundation from 19 September 2020 to 10 April 2021
2020 年，阿图伊在沙迦艺术基金会的展览《Cycles in 11》上展示了第二个版本的“地面”作品和聆听空间。
A second version of the composition and listening space was presented in Tarek Atoui’s exhibition Cycles in 11 at the Sharjah Art Foundation in 2020.
[声音文献] [Sound Archive]
目前在镜花园展出的声音文献是“地面”系2020年9月19日至 2021年 4 月10日于沙迦艺术基金会举办的《 Cycles in 11 》展览中呈现的版本的录音。
The sound archive currently presented at Mirrored Gardens is a recording of the The Ground, 2020 as installed in the exhibition Tarek Atoui: Cycles in 11 at the Sharjah Art Foundation from 19 September 2020 to 10 April 2021.
图文由艺术家和维他命艺术空间惠允。 Courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space.
