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Practising with Nature | ‘When Mom Got Lost in the Forest, Who Was Talking to Her?’ Series and ‘New Public Garden’ Screening and Artist Talk

  • Time
    20 December 2025, 14.30–16.15
  • Location
    4F, A4 Art Museum
  • Artist
    XU Tan

Introduction

The project investigates the perspectives of individuals from East Asia or with East Asian backgrounds regarding the relationship between humanity, the botanical world, and the ‘natural environment’. It demonstrates how, despite rapid modernisation and technological advancement, East Asian cultures retain a deep-seated belief in ‘spirits’. These investigations and interviews were conducted across diverse locales, including Guangdong, Kyoto, Singapore, and San Francisco.

  • Screening List

    When Mother Got Lost in the Mountains, Who Was Talking to Her?

    The Seed and the Leaf

    Earth Mother and the Canary in the Coal Mine

    I Really Felt It, Roy

  • Artist Profile

    XU Tan

    Born in Wuhan in 1957, Tan Xu received his Master’s degree from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 1989. In 1993, he joined the ‘Big Tail Elephants Working Group’ in Guangzhou. He currently lives and works in the Pearl River Delta. In 2012, he co-founded HB Station.
    Xu’s work spans various media, including text, photography, video, performance, installation, and the internet. Sensitive to shifts in social life and culture, he constantly interrogates the boundaries of contemporary art. For over a decade, he has emphasised the practical integration of art and sociological research, viewing the synthesis of social-practical knowledge production, aesthetic consciousness, and rational cognition as inseparable whilst exploring the tension between them. In recent years, he has ventured into collaborative social art practices.
    In 2005, Xu launched the ‘Searching for Keywords’ research project. Through audiovisual interviews and data collection among active populations in China’s vibrant regions, he continuously identifies and organises ‘keywords’, placing them within new conversational contexts. The ‘Keywords School’, established in 2008, serves as a public space for the exchanges triggered by these terms. Since 2011, ‘Keywords Lab—Social Botany’ has initiated specialized research projects on socio-cultural issues, exploring the combination of social research and aesthetic activity to create a comprehensive, cross-disciplinary cognitive production. In 2019, he invited several artists to begin a collaborative experimental project, ‘Shunde Studies’. During this period, he conducted a research project on socio-psychological barriers titled Egret, Please Stay, Let’s Have a Heart-to-Heart.