Lucy + Jorge Orta à la 9e biennale de Shangai

For the 9th Shanghai Biennial (2 october 2012 – 31 march 2013) Lucy + Jorge Orta are commissioned to make three large-scale interventions for the Museum of Contemporary Art: OrtaWater Purification Factory,Antarctica World Passport Delivery Village and Nexus Architecture.

OrtaWater Purification Factory is a fully functioning, mobile water purification system. The work will draw from Shanghai’s Huang Pu River and will pump water up 20 metres into the museum’s third floor. It will be purified in a bamboo ‘factory’ and then clean drinking water snaked around the museum for the visitors to taste, enjoy and take away in a specially designed OrtaWater bottle.

Due to the effects of global warming it is estimated that sea levels will raise 0.5 to 1.4 metres over the next 100 years. Antarctica World Passport Delivery Village is comprised of a collection of small huts made from reclaimed materials, erected on stilts and interconnected by a raised platform of bamboo. A Metisse Flag will indicate the delivery bureau, where a passport officer will hand out the third edition of the Antarctica World Passport. Printed in Chinese for the occasion of the Shanghai Biennale, tens of thousands of passports will be distributed to museum visitors. New members will be welcomed into the Antarctica world community based on the founding principles of the Antarctic Treaty.

Nexus Architecture is both an installation and a performance artwork. During these ephemeral interventions, performers and passers-by will become physically involved in the construction of choreographed scenarios, which are later filmed and photographed to create a document of the event. By climbing into specially conceived suits and zippering the Nexus, participants challenge the premise of interdependence, asserting chosen community as a means to personal liberation.

The Shanghai Bienniale is the highest-profile contemporary art event in the city and the most established art biennal in China. The 9th Shanghai Biennale foregrounds art education, art and the self-organization of the society, knowledge production and common destiny.

Weblinks
http://www.studio-orta.com/news.php
http://www.shanghaibiennale.com/2012/eweb/index.asp

Lucy & Jorge Orta

Prochaines expositions
FIAC Hors les Murs, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris, 17 October – 21 October 2012
Unlimited Bodies / Perles du corps, Palais d’Iéna, Paris, 13 October – 24 October
Fantastic, lille3000, Hôtel de Ville, Lille, 6 October – 13 January 2013

Expositions en cours
Food Water Life, Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, USA, 6 September – 11 November 2012
Nature’s Toolbox: Biodiversity, Art & Invention, Field Musum, Chicago, USA, 22 May – 2 November 2012
Fabulae Romanae, MAXXI – National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome, 22 March 2012 – 23 September 2012