Exhibition “Message to the Future” – Ma Haijiao
Solo exhibition of Ma Haijiao 马海蛟
Exhibition Period: 18 Mar 2017 – 15 Apr 2017
Venue: Canvas Contemporary Gallery, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Collaboration of Canvas Contemporary Gallery and Oooit Art
Haijiao’s art practice has an enduring concern with the daily “routine” of life, and taking this as the basis, he traces its logic clues to connect the working forms and video narratives. His creation uses video as the medium, including video and photo photography. He is good at fusing documentary images and fictional texts, capturing poetic moments from characters and scenes, thus forming a unique stylized image language.
“Before Yesterday” is a series of photography. The author juxtaposes the actual postcards collected in the Netherlands with the photographic images. The actual postcards shown are the text side. The content is a blessing written by someone 15-80 years ago. , for the author, this blessing is attached to a beautiful symbolic or commemorative image, or a photo of a certain church, or the scenery of a certain park. Time has changed, and the author went to the original locations of these images one by one in 2017, took photos from the same angle, and juxtaposed these photos with the corresponding text on the back of the postcard, so that the audience is presented with the scenery of 2017 and decades ago a piece of blessing, and the scenery of that year has disappeared, and it is also permanently hidden by the author. This work of Ma Haijiao continues his thinking about time in his previous works, and it will also become a long-term project of his. Based on his personal postcard collection and travel destinations in the future, he will continue to create a series of creations.
“Message to the Future” is a single-screen video work, the content of the video is the Dutch landscape in the mist, and the voice-over is a letter from home in Arabic. The author of the letter is a Middle Eastern refugee who just came to the Netherlands. This letter is written to his mother who still lives in his hometown. The letter mentions what he saw and heard in the Netherlands. Nostalgia produced, Ma Haijiao mixed personal emotional elements in this work. Many issues such as “the sense of crisis brought about by beautiful things”, “the origin of nostalgia” and “the understanding of freedom” have become personal issues in the context of today’s global situation. The author transforms his personal thinking on these issues into poetic image performance.
Ma Haijiao was born in Hebei Province, China in 1999. From 2009 to 2016, he studied at China Academy of Art, gained a BA and then an MA. Now lives and works in Beijing. In 2016 he won Gold award of graduation work, China Academy of Art and in 2013 he won Bronze award of graduation work, China Academy of Art. He participated in Oooit Art international art residency program in the Netherlands in end 2016.