Following up on our spectacular exhibition “Poster Art of Modern China, 1913-1997” in 2014, we are proud to bring back Yang Peiming, Director of the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre to present his unique collections of Textiles of Revolutionary China to Edinburgh.
This exhibition presents a unique perspective and an intimate window into everyday Chinese life in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the collection of Chinese Bed Quilts uncovers more than a simple fondness for the auspicious colour red.
Lovingly preserved by the private collector Yang Peiming of the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre, this rare and unique collection will exhibit in Europe for the first time.
Offering viewers not only an opportunity to come face-to-face with the traditional beauty of an ancient culture, the exhibition also provides an insight to the complex history of a modern-day superpower.
Date and Time: 25 September – 29 September, 1000-1700
Location: Riddle’s Court, 322 Lawnmarket, Edinburgh, EH1 2PG
A portrait of a year in the painting studio of Shen Jianhua in Dali, Yunnan Province. Originally from Shanghai, Shen moved to the countryside to teach the local Bai women art and painting. The film documents both the fading traditions of the local community and the impact of a rapidly changing modern China. In the words of Wendy Ide from Screen International: ‘This lyrical documentary from Zhang Yang is a meditation on beauty.’ [U]
High-concept action-adventure thrills ‘n’ spills from top genre director Renny Harlin, Bodies at Rest pays homage to the 1990s action skills Harlin refined in such films as Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger. On a rainy Christmas Eve, the morgue of pathologist Nick Chan (Nick Cheung) and his intern (Yang Zi) is taken over by gunmen desperate to cover up a drug deal gone wrong. Taiwanese actor Richie Jen is great as the lead villain and the fight scenes make for great old-fashioned action mayhem. [15]
Wu Wenguang is the internationally acknowledged doyen of Chinese independent documentary, producing acclaimed “unofficial” films in China since the late 1980s. In 2005 he created the Caochangdi Workstation as an independent space to focus on oral history and to document individual stories during particular difficult historical periods including the “Three year famine”, the “Great Leap Forward,” the “Land Reform” and the “Cultural Revolution”. This massive project is intended to create an independent folk memory archive, now involving 20 filmmakers, and more than 200 participants going back to their villages for interviews, with over 1500 interviewees from more than 300 villages.
Zhang Mengqi was trained as a dancer and joined Caochangdi as a filmmaker and choreographer in 2009. Her films have been presented at international film festivals in China, Japan and Europe. The film presented in Edinburgh will complete her 8 “self-portrait series”.
Professor Chen Zhi holds a Bachelor’s degree in History from Peking University and a M. Phil in Chinese Literature from Nanjing University. He also has a PhD degree in Chinese studies from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, USA. Professor Chen started his teaching at National University of Singapore, Middlebury College and the UW-Madison. He joined HKBU in 2000, and served as Acting Dean of Arts, Chair Professor in Chinese Literature and the founding Director of the Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology. Currently he is concurrently appointed to the Vice President in Academic Affairs of BNU-HKBU United International College (UIC) at Zhuhai.
