Everyday a Rainbow: Annie Wan Pushes the Boundaries of Ceramics

After a long run from September 3, the 11th Gwangju Art Biennale wrapped up on November 6. While most of the art was exhibited inside the gallery, there was a special art piece set up as a kiosk on the Biennale plaza. Annie Wan Lai-Kuen, international award-winning Hong Kong-based ceramics artist and assistant professor at Hong Kong Baptist University’s Academy of Visual Arts, created a colorful piece called Everyday a Rainbow, incorporating everyday objects found in local shops and replacing those objects in the shops with celadon.
Shortly before the exhibit’s closing, Gwangju News was able to catch up with Wan over email and recorded interview, discussing the possible future of ceramics and its place within contemporary art.
GN: How did you first get involved with the Gwangju Biennale 2016?
Wan: I got an email in 2015, asking if I was interested in a residency and making a new piece for an exhibition. This year, Maria the director and Michelle [an assistant curator] stopped in Hong Kong and I showed [them] my portfolio. They asked me to do a research trip in April, so at that time I realized that I was a participating artist in the Gwangju Biennale. I did the Forum at the university [in March 2016] before the research trip and when the idea became concrete, from July to August, I started to do the residency, the making of ceramics and the production of the whole piece.
GN: Speaking of the Forum that you participated in, “What does art do? Mediating the Gwangju Biennale 2016,” was held at the University of Hong Kong on March 23, 2016. In regards to such a seminar, what do you believe is the role that the university setting plays in mediating art?
Wan: For your question about the university’s role, I think this is more important for young people studying art. What I hesitate about – maybe it would be better to have the forum at another university like the Chinese University or our Academy of Visual Arts. These two universities have practical art courses, but the art courses at the University of Hong Kong are mainly history and theory. If the young artists or the young artists-to-be who are in those practical art courses are [at the Forum], they will get more in to the discussion of how a practical artist thinks about doing artwork and how it relates to society. Putting it in a school setting plays a positive role in mediating arts, if the publicity can be spread more widely.

GN: How does your conceptual approach to ceramics reflect the changes in contemporary art?
Wan: When I make an art creation, I am mostly concerned about the gap between ceramics and contemporary art because it is quite different. The nature of ceramics is as a kind of craft and also the material base and objects play a very important role. For contemporary art, it is not concerned as much about media and material. The concept is more important. Always, we think [about] how ceramics can be pushed more to the boundaries and at the same time retain its significance, because when it is spreading too much, maybe its identity will become weakened. The raw material is not that important and that goes to the conceptual development of the whole piece. So rethinking the media in my work is also a very important factor. The process of ceramics actually carries its identity. Even though its boundary is extended, because ceramics is put at center stage, as an element to be investigated, it will not lose its identity in this way.
GN: What was your inspiration behind the work Everyday a Rainbow, collecting objects from local shops and replacing them with celadon?
Wan: I think shopping is a very main thing in my work because I started the work with shopping for the kiosk, the window blinds for furnishing the kiosk and buying the commodities to put inside the kiosk. So I think in this work, I also wanted to push the boundaries of art, making art and also how to display an artwork, like in a normal museum. Putting objects in local shops but at the same time, switch those objects to make the materials from artwork. These two oppositions ask the question “What is art?” I just do the artwork with the material, and [if] the material is daily-life objects, then that is the whole display place, like a shoemaker’s booth, but in the shops, I replace it with celadon. Also the rainbow color, it is creative. I put the kiosk in the plaza, so the audience would not just be those who buy the tickets and get into the gallery. It is also the students who play in the plaza, and the neighbors when they pass the plaza, so they can see my work as well. I do not turn off the lights, even though it is Midnight, so it glows very colorfully in the darkness. I quite like that part. And also how I extended space from the kiosk to the wooden chair we made outside to reflect another chair from a coffee shop. So everything is put together to make a kind of new experience for the people who pass by the plaza.
GN: What are some trends that you see happening in the present and future of ceramic arts?
Wan: I think ceramics in contemporary art does face an identity crisis, because it is a traditional art form and it carries some raw material, techniques and craftsmanship. This is not a concern in contemporary art, so some of the ceramics artists will go back to their cultures and try to see if there are any new possibilities in the [traditional ways]. But some ceramics artists will ignore all these traditions and start a very new approach to ceramics. In this approach, the identity of ceramics may be weakened as I said before. There is still quite a lot of room and space for ceramics artists to explore. Because ceramics is a multimedia [form], you may take up your own position in this wide space. With traditional techniques or cultures, you can enjoy working in the crafts area. Some artists will like to break the mold, so there is quite a lot of possibility Contemporary art [is showing a] trend of going back to craftsmanship. If so, ceramics can have some visibility in contemporary art.