Q and A with Chinese curator Huang Du in conjunction with Today’s Fourth Documents |“A Stitch in Time” at Today Art Museum in Beijing. Published in the ‘Stitch in Time’ Catalogue.December 2019.

Q: As one of the co-curators, Jonathan Harris proposed to have Arts Territory Exchange participating in this exhibition. Through his introduction of aTE’s artistic proposition we perceive the ideas and clearly see its articulation to the theme-“A Stitch in Time”. You have showed the profound understanding towards the implied and complex political, philosophical and social meanings of ‘stitch’ in in the catalogue essay. Not only that, you have also exemplified it as a necessary working method. Could you please briefly describe your (aTE) ‘articulating’ position among the development of the world, people and or the artists?  And are you truly positive about the situation?

GF :Thankyou, it has been an interesting exhibition to be part of and a new experience to work with a Museum in China. I welcomed the opportunity of addressing some of Laclau's ideas in relation to the contemporary art world.
In terms of your question about positivity - I prefer to adopt a pessimistic-critical position because I feel this is a way for me to avoid complacency. I know allot of 'positive' people who care little for the World's politics or the environment. I have no positivity towards the current status quo in a general sense but am excited by artists who want to try to instigate change, like Katie Ione Craney in Alaska who raises awareness of climate change in her work and talks about the ice melt in terms of Mourning and loss (shouldn't every person in the world be in mourning over the rapid climate change the world is facing?). Or the work of Alana Hunt and Joanna Wright in this show and their collaboration around ways to de-stabilise colonial power structures through conversations around the municipal and architectural motifs of Dams. I suppose that is where the idea of the stitch fits in (as a possible working methodology as you suggest) with the actions of individuals and small groups to make continual and repetitive repair and to keep working in light of what can often seem like insurmountable and crushing power structures.

Q: Can the responses from the artists really take effect when facing the “stitches” and “cuts” that are caused by globalization, and populism? Are there pathways when art and culture can try to predominate in the complicated and dynamic world? Could focusing on female issues, environmental problems or post-globalization be one (pathway)?  

GF: I am not really equipped to talk about the world as a whole, although I do touch up on these ideas in the essay...
I suppose I am not sure what you mean by pre-dominate here, if an artist was to choose to focus on feminist or environmental issues just as a way to find a 'pathway' then I would say thats not a good place to start, there is enough tokenistic art about these issues and it needs to be made by artists who actually care about what they are doing not those who are just trying to become successful...
I use the motif of 'fear' in the essay and the idea of a 'vigilant fear' is one which I find useful in terms of a mode of operation for art which can also be political... I suppose what really interests me is the idea of a practice which continues despite cuts and repressive governments, not art as activism in a blatent sense but that the act of production in the face of certain forces may be a counter act...

Q: You have pointed out aTE’s focus on the “marginalization”, villages, remote areas, and its will to establish the information and intellectual communications with those areas, would you say this is the core of aTE’s working methodology? What do you expect from it? And what did the result so far look like?

GF: I would say the idea of 'remoteness' is a core part of the Arts Territory Exchange...this can mean rurality and geographical isolation of course but also a remoteness which can can exist in other ways, including the removal (self imposed or otherwise) from traditional art world and educational models.
In terms of your question, its not so much about establishing connections in remote areas but to connect with artists who already live in those remote areas, so not imposing any narratives, intellectual or otherwise. But the fact that so many interesting artists, writers, film-makers live in remote locations already, challenges an idea inherent in the 'global art world' that remote and rural areas are somehow devoid of ‘culture’(a western centric view of what culture is) and that art and education needs to be delivered from urban centers. With aTE I want to challenge what I consider to be the problematics of artists' travel and tourist cultures – the environmental as well as the ethical implications of travel in a post colonial context – the desire to observe and document places/people and landscapes fuelled by the artist residency 'business' and its funding frameworks (which encourage a structure of; observation, interpretation and the re-delivery of information to a 'home audience'). This structure speaks of ethnographic and 'field work' practices which come straight from an era of Colonial exploration (and were also overarching male).
This has meant the pairing up or artists in remote locations in a 'Residency by Correspondence' so they may engage with each others locations from a distance through postal and digital collaborations. So far this looks like quite a traditional large 'archive' of letters, objects and images which also has a digital component. We are also working on developing models for virtual artist residencies using live stream technologies which will allow artists to have immersive experiences in locations vulnerable to the effects of tourism such as parts of the Arctic.

Q：People who participate in aTE are from different background with various professions, there are artists, curators, filmmakers, writers and etc.. what brought them together, or how did it initiate at the beginning? As an artistic networking platform, what’s the expectation on this online organism?

GF: I began aTE due to feeling isolated as an artist and parent in a rural location and started a long distance collaboration with artist Carly Butler in British Columbia Canada. I then started pairing up other people in different parts of the world Caroline Kelley and Kristin Scheving (Iceland and France) and Georgina Reskala and Elizabeth Schoen (USA and Netherlands) are original members who are also in this show, all of the original members were parents some of which I met through Lenka Clayton's Artist in Residence in Motherhood project (a wonderful alternative residency programme for parents). The uptake of members since the end of 2016 has been much larger than I anticipated and yes the membership is very diverse although all artists have an interest in 'location' and 'place' in the broadest sense and many find the idea of engaging with other localities with out travelling very appealing, so we have artists who don't do long hall travel for ethical reasons as well as disabled artists who are unable to travel taking part in the 'Residency by Correspondence' programme.Now aTE interpolates between being an organisation, an artist led project and a network. There is also an educational element with work shops, tutorials and symposia.

I am an artist and a researcher, I never intended on being a curator or arts organiser ( I do lots of this now with aTE) but actually the idea of 'organising' I think is quite a crucial one in terms of the 'articulating' idea you mentioned earlier, which for Laclau is obviously about exchange and social discursiveness. The idea of making things happen (events, exhibitions) without core funding often involves processes which are profoundly social: negotiating spaces for free, bartering and exchanging resources – this involves becoming familiar with establishment frameworks around galleries and museums whilst at the same time challenging them and finding new way to approach working relationships. I know many amazing artist led organisations which operate in the same way, aside side from traditional art world models and funding structures which can be stifling and restrictive.
In terms of online outcomes, I hope aTE will grow as a resource over time and continue its's remit of finding alternatives to tradition travel and field work models.