Draft:Chen Qiulin

Chen Qiulin (Chinese: 陈秋林; born 1975) is a female contemporary Chinese new media artist. Born in 1975 in Yichang, Hubei Province, China, currently resides in Chengdu.

Chen Qiulin
陈秋林
Born	1975 Yichang, Hubei, China
Nationality	China
Alma mater	Sichuan Fine Arts Institute
Occupation	Artist
Spouse	「Liu Jie」

Her representative works include the Ellipsis Series, Farewell Poem, The Last Rose, One Hundred, Internet affairs and Empty City. Focused on advancing creation through multiple media, she offers fresh perspectives and attitudes toward social issues such as consumerism, feminism, and environmental issues .

Early Life

Art Experience

Chen Qiulin was born in 1975 in Yichang, Hubei Province, China, and grew up in Wanxian (now Wanzhou District, Chongqing). She left Wanxian for studies in 1995 and graduated from the Department of Printmaking of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2000. She currently works and lives in Chengdu. Influenced by a group of contemporary artists in Chengdu, Chen embarked on the path of new media art creation. From March to September 2007, she participated in an exchange program at the Asian Cultural Council (ACC) in New York, the United States. From March to September 2009, she studied as an exchange student at the National School of Fine Arts at the Villa Arson in France.

Family

Chen Qiulin's grandfather once worked for the Yangtze River Transportation Company. Her father was the only son in the family. After she started working, her parents moved to Chengdu with her.

Art Achievements

Awards

• 2017:Loop Award of Loop Fair 2017

• 2010: The Fourth Annual AAC Award for the Most Influential Participants of Chinese Art 2009-the Annual Young Artist (Nominated); Reshaping History Academic Award (Nominated)

• 2008: First Asian World Women Forum Rising Talents Programme Nominee
• 2006: Asian Cultural Council, Starr Foundation Fellowship
• 2005: Emerging Artist Prize, Biennale Internationale d'Art Contemporain Chinois, Montpellier-Chine

Selected Public Collections

Collection Institution	Location
Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art	Oslo, Norway
T-BA21, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary	Vienna, Austria
The Sondra Gilman and Celso Gonzalez-Falla Collections	New York, USA
The Bohen Foundation	New York, USA
Denver Art Museum	Denver, USA
Logan Collection	Denver, USA
Hammer Museum	Los Angeles, USA
Worcester Art Museum	Worcester, USA
Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art	Queensland, Australia
Royal Bank of Canada	Montreal, Canada etc
DSL Collection	Paris, France
Today Art Museum	Beijing, China
CAFA Art Museum	Beijing, China
A4 Art Museum	Chengdu, China
Tsinghua University Art Museum	Beijing, China
Art Museum of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute	Chongqing, China

Representative Works

Farewell Poem

Farewell Poem is a 11-minute video work created by Chen Qiulin in 2002 using a home video camera, documenting the evolution of Wanxian during the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. The work depicts five scenic spots in the Three Gorges area under demolition and reconstruction, as well as the changes in lifestyle and conditions of local residents affected by the project. In handling the background music, the work blends on-site ambient sounds, traditional Peking Opera, and looping electronic music, forming a natural soundscape free from human language. The entire piece reflects Chen's reflections on realism and China's new-era industrialization, expressing "a solemn and stirring mood of parting," and calling for the inheritance and preservation—rather than forgetting—of traditional culture.

Another Day

Another Day is a project completed by Chen Qiulin between 2014 and 2016, exhibited at OCAT Xi'an, Thousand Plateaus Art Space of Chengdu, and other venues. The works in this project are the artist's investigation into the lives of women in remote mountainous areas of southeastern Guizhou, using media such as video, installation, and photography. Chen mentioned that the work was inspired by Zuo Jing's Maogong Plan project, as she admired the "most authentic portrayal of life" shown in Dimeng Village, northern Maogong Township, Liping, Guizhou. In Another Day, installations and videos center on beds and local women as protagonists, depicting the survival reality of these women.

Peppermint

Peppermint is Chen Qiulin's personal art project, exhibited at Chengdu's Luhu·A4 Art Museum in 2018. The work was inspired by a group photo of her and old martial arts team classmates taken 30 years ago. Using "peppermint" as a thread of memory, the work combines elements such as boats, portraits, and hometown, presented through multiple media including photography, video, and live performance. On the opening day of the exhibition, more than 40 people participated in a "body performance" display. It is a work about searching, discussing the migration of personal memory in the context of China's urbanization, as well as the search for and changes in memory anchors.

Drown

Drown is a series of performance photography works created by Chen Qiulin in collaboration with dancer Zheng Yuanyuan and sound artist Chen Hongli, inspired by the intensified collective emotions since the COVID-19 pandemic. Exhibited at Chen Qiulin's solo exhibition Chen Qiulin—Weak Water at Thousand Plateaus Art Space of Chengdu from 2021 to 2022, the work uses tofu as a medium to capture its material properties and sensory characteristics—such as fragility, sensitivity, perishability, and inclusiveness—to express the feeling of completely intensified emotional entanglement and engulfment. This marks her first attempt at collective creation.