Song Chen

Song Chen

Song Chen was born in Luoyang in 1979 and has been living in Shanghai since 2003.

Song Chen is an Eastern eco-artist creating contemporary art with earthen soil as her primary medium. Locality is extremely important to Song Chen’s work, as the artist considers her locality as a spiritual home from where she can focus on the ultimate destination of human evolution. Her prolific performative praxis has created several happenings and installations using soil, ink, and other natural materials through which she seeks to address the human heart as her partner in dialogue. Her soil-based creations utilize a variety of artistic forms, including installation, performance, video, and mixed media. Song Chen’s soil-based artworks have been exhibited at Art Hong Kong, Art Basel HK, Shanghai Art Fair, ART021 Contemporary Art Fair in Shanghai, and West Bund Art & Design in Shanghai. Among them, Walking Landscape Series Ⅰ and Walking Landscape Series Ⅱ have been collected by Yuz Foundation, and the Dust to Dust series has been collected by the Princess of Uzbekistan.

Piece Description:

Text: Zhong Ting

In the beginning the sky of our universe was black, while the earth was yellow. Clouds drifted across the sky and rain fell on the earth. Pure yin and pure yang begin to create all that is. Contemporary Nüwa, Song Chen, uses five colors of clay to create her works, shaking the clay to form the soul of her artwork, showing shows that the artist has long understood the carrying and rooting power of clay, on both physical and mental levels. Jia, Yi and wood are in the east; Bing, Ding, and fire are in the south; Geng, Xin, and metal are in west; Ren, Gui, and water are in the north; Wu, Ji, and earth are in the middle. “Earth” is at the center of the five Phases, and “An Tu安图” signifies as “peace of mind.” In front of the canvas, Song uses soil to put her body in place; Tuan zhuan (the text explaining the divinatory symbols in the Book of Changes) says, “All species in the universe depend on the earth for their growth, and its merits are vast and infinite.” “Earth” also represents Gaia and her origin, with the attributes of birth, nurturing, carrying, hiding, and nourishing all things in a gentle manner. Song Chen’s artistic expression of scattering earth to the ten directions on-site in a ritualized body language should remind us of the beginning of civilization when we were attached to and revered the land.

Song Chen adopts the simplest soil as her medium and material, wearing soil clothes and holding a rattan cane in her hand, throwing yellow mud onto the canvas of the earth, spreading the mud dots as a means of drawing circles. Walking on the yellow soil with bare feet, she meditates on the motherly and empty power of the earth, thus awakening people’s ecological care for the soil, inspiring them to gain continuous life energy in the process of linking up with the earth.

Piece Description:

Text: Zhong Ting

Xiang zhuan says, “Heaven, in its motion, (gives the idea of) strength. The superior man, in accordance with this, nerves himself to ceaseless activity.

The (capacity and sustaining) power of the earth is what is denoted by Kun. The superior man, in accordance with this, with his large virtue, supports (men and) things.” There is yin and yang in heaven and earth, which can create everything, and at its root, it is Wuji (the infinite). Since we were born, all things in heaven and earth have long been divided into different forms. Have we long forgotten that we came from the Wuji?

In Song Chen’s world, soil can be medium of expression and communication, serving as a kind of paint. She also believes that the body, like soil, contains everything and has the possibility to give birth to all things. Therefore, in Song Chen’s art practice, the body is harmonized with the origin of soil. She demonstrates the unity of body and mind using soil performance art to present the spiritual image of everything fusing as one, hearkening unto the Wuji.

In (the system of) the Yi, the Wuji produced the Taiji (Grand Terminus); The Taiji produced Liangyi (the two elementary forms); The Liangyi produced the Sancai (the three powers: the way of heaven, the way of man, and the way of earth); The Sancai produced the Sixiang (the four emblematic Symbols); The Sixiang produced the Wuxing (the five phases); The Wuxing produced the Liuhe (the six directions: east, west, north, south, heaven (up) and earth (down)); The Liuhe produced the Qingxing (the seven stars); The Qingxing produced the Bagua (the eight trigrams); The Bagua produced the Jiugong (the nine models); Everything belongs to the Shifang (the ten directions: north, south, east, west, northeast, southeast, southwest, northwest, above and below). “Ten” represents a limit, pointing to an infinite world. However, everything is one, which is a dialectical and unifying idea. The so-called “Heaven and Man Are United as One” can also be understood as the unimpeded flow of energy and transformation between the human body and its inner spirit. In the external world, once the flow of energy is blocked, then yin and yang are not in harmony. Then there will be a desire to return to a balanced state, and that desire will lead to more trouble. This is the significance of Lao Zi’s statement of “returning to the infinite,” “returning to the infant,” and “returning to simplicity,” which is what the artist Song Chen calls the healing of the earth – “Soil and Body as One,” “dust returns to dust, and the earth returns to earth.” Dust returns to dust, and the earth returns to earth– Soil and Body as One.

In the creation of Soil and Body as One: Ritual of Ten Directions, Song Chen tries to release the soil and the earth back to their own state of emptiness, so that their “non-self” can continue to inspire the human world. The “emptiness“ of the soil makes the soil last forever, unlike human civilization, which is merely “passing through“. “This inspiration also prompts us to take stock of and reflect on problems encountered in natural ecology. This is also the answer to a world that the artist believes is buried in the soil.

Piece Description:

Text: Zhong Ting

Between heaven and earth, human beings are the spirit of everything, and the body is the temple of the soul. The artist grabs a handful of earth and sprinkles it on the earth, which is the temple that carries life; the earthen clothes are traces left by the temperature of the body and life of the artist Song Chen throughout the scene of her performance art. She is clad in earth. Even though she has already left the scene, these traces of the earth on her clothes and artworks are left as proof of the existence of her human spirit. As a token of nature that communicates between different times and dimensions, these relics remind people to step out of themselves and pay attention to the oneness of the land together with human beings.

Piece Description:

Text: Zhong Ting

“Earth” is at the center of the family and represents the position of grandparents in family relationships. When the grandmother is at peace, the family is in harmony. In nature, earth represents Zhangxia (The period from the beginning of autumn to the autumn equinox), center, yellow, wetness, transformation, sweetness and Gong (fate). In the human body, earth represents the spleen, stomach, mouth, flesh, thoughts, singing and yuě (emesis). Song Chen’s soil-based site utilizes a mound of five-colored earth as a sermon field. The revelation of the body’s action of residing in the center of earth creates an earth energy field of physical and spiritual healing which is soil-based. With this work, the artist expresses the Taoist concept that everything in heaven and earth has the same root and origin, and those human beings, who stand between heaven and earth, are inducted into everything, forming an organic and whole system. In fact, any changes in the natural environment, social relations, or culture can cause changes in the human body, mind and emotions. Song Chen introduces the medicine of art through soil-based actions, healing the body and connecting with the spiritual world of others through the soil in hopes to realize the healing and releasing of people’s hearts.

Through soil performance art, as a soil-based immersive healing experience, Soil and Body as One: Documentary Film of Soil-based Performance Artwork allows more people to link to Song Chen’s continuous connection to contemporary soil culture. In fact, returning to the earth and returning to the soil itself is also a process of returning to oneself, of returning to the place where one’s feet are grounded, and returning to one’s roots to consolidate one’s roots. Through the medium of soil art, the artist tells us to go back to the place where our feet are standing, to the level of life that is solid and fundamental. Only then we can reorganize the outer levels of our life. At this time, we will have a greater sense of peace and balance in our life body and mind – Soil and Body as One.

Exhibited Works