Brain Garden – The 5th Zhijiang International Youth Art Festival 2023 & CAA Graduation Season kicked off at the South Square of Zhejiang Exhibition Hall on the evening of June 1.
The thematic show started with an AIGC video entitled Oddinary. As the brain-computer interface technology advances, the boundary between the virtual and real worlds is getting blurred, indicating that humans have stood at a crossroads in a new era of intelligent civilization.
At the opening ceremony, the guests put on a brainwave device to start Lian Xiang – one of the artworks for the show. When the signal is re-encoded by AI technology, a garden gradually appears in the human brain, turning it into a theater for people to unleash creativity.
Attendees of the opening ceremony included Fan Qingyu, Deputy Director of the Publicity Department of the CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee; Xu Weihua, Standing Committee Member of CPC Hangzhou Municipal Committee and Vice Mayor of Hangzhou; Huang Haifeng, Standing Committee Member of CPC Hangzhou Municipal Committee and Director of the Publicity Department; Qian Xiaofang, Standing Committee Member of the Zhejiang Provincial People's Congress and Vice Chairman of the Education, Science, Culture, and Public Health Committee; Xu Jiang, Vice Chairman of China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Chairman of Zhejiang Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles (ZFLAC) and Director of the Academic Board, CAA; Yang Shouwei, Party Secretary and Vice Chairman of ZFLAC and Executive Secretary of the Secretariat; Jin Yibin, Party Secretary of CAA; Gao Shiming, President of CAA; Li Xinfang, Deputy Director-General of Zhejiang Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism.
Vice Mayor of Hangzhou Chen Weiqiang, Yang Shouwei, Jin Yibin, and Vice President of Zhejiang Conservatory of Music Dong Dejun presented certificates of participation to the representatives of young artists. Fan Qingyu, Xu Jiang and Gao Shiming delivered a speech at the opening ceremony. Halina Troshyna, a representative of young artists and the Class of 2023 doctoral students at CAA spoke at the ceremony.
Ms. Fan Qingyu stated that Zhijiang International Youth Art Festival is a feast covering visual arts, music, poetry, drama and other art forms for the general public. The Youth Art Festival has become an influential cultural and creative platform in Hangzhou, as well as a golden calling card presenting the unique charm of Zhejiang culture. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that young people are the future of a nation and the future of innovation rests in them; young people are active and full of vitality and their art creation should be vigorous and enthusiastic. Ms. Fan called on young artists to foster ideals, values and faith, pursue their dreams inspired by the Chinese Dream, establish themselves with humanity, virtue and art, and give back to the community in the new era with art creation, thus realizing their artistic value and social value.
Mr. Xu Jiang said that the live shows of the Youth Art Festival turn the whole city into a stage and exhibition venue for youth art, creating a youth paradise in the city of creation. With the event showcasing young artists' creations amidst the lake and mountain landscapes citywide, Hangzhou citizens have the chance to enjoy the charm of this artistic city. Graduates from the two schools not only have completed their craftsmanship studies but also have been nourished by humanities, mountains and lakes here. They have refined their artistic tastes amidst the unceasing pursuit of truth and righteousness in creation. They kept practicing and tapping into something new every day at studios, music rooms, and stages, exploring the art garden like in Arcadia and Utopia. They have undergone a spiritual baptism by traveling far and getting back to the origin of art creation, knowing well how to gain but not to be tormented by material gains. Resting their eyes on youth and beauty, they fully express their feelings about the natural creatures and landscapes, creating artworks with diversity. CAA is not only a place for learning art but also a carrier to seek aesthetic faith. Students seek their faith with kaleidoscopic artistic creativity and forge a "Brain Garden" – a "garden" of free minds under the guidance of such faith. With an overture on show at numerous theaters and concert halls, the Graduation Season started across the city. Young artists are integrating their youth into the show, jointly commencing Zhijiang International Youth Art Festival 2023.
Mr. Gao Shiming started his speech by mentioning an essay titled Hangzhou of Art written by Lin Fengmian, founding principal of CAA. He emphasized that art not only creates beauty but also serves as an important driver for social innovation and that the Hangzhou of today is not only the Hangzhou of Art but the "Hangzhou of Creation". Brain Garden – the theme of this edition of Youth Art Festival, shows that we are amidst a new technology revolution where there is infinite computing power and boundless creativity. Human's mission is to unearth new experiences and create a world filled with infinite possibilities. That means as artists, we have to decipher the code behind creation and the logic behind emotion, and unlock the Brain Garden in everyone. At the end of his speech, Mr. Gao encouraged young artists and designers to apply new technologies, embrace the era of artificial intelligence, and make full use of artistic intelligence to build a flourishing Brain Garden and unleash endlessly artistic creativity.
Halina, a Belarusian student from the School of Intermedia Art, spoke as a representative of young artists and graduates at the ceremony. She extended her thanks to CAA for providing her with rich art nourishment and allowing her to pursue intermedia art creation and try new art practices while learning Eastern and Western art history. Halina said that studying at CAA is one of the most important experiences in her life, where she can openly learn the classics, past and present, seek and prove all the truths on her own, and realize her self-worth in artistic creation. Also, she expressed her gratitude to her teachers, classmates, friends and family for their support, which was essential for her to adapt to the new environment and finish her studies, drawing a great full stop to her study abroad.
It is an odyssey of consciousness, a wander amidst the paradox of infinity, a question into the boundary between reality and illusion in the entanglement of the real world and the virtual world. Watching the Topology of Dreams in the midst of reality and virtuality, people explore the virtual world built by humans as true Creators.
The MR AI Garden led people into an exploration of a future created amidst the intertwining of human beings and technology in the era of AI, enabling the pursuit of dreams and ideals without constraints.
Audiences have the chance to enjoy the fashion show with hyper-audiovisual scenes at the Metaverse Art Academy (MAA). It is a place where all student can present their true inquiry into the real world and their understanding of the virtual world as a creator, demonstrating the ontological values in their Brain Gardens. Over 80 works from 46 students in Fashion and Apparel Design at the School of Design, CAA are showcased in the fashion show. The designers created their works with an open mindset and expression ways from multiple dimensions, placing emphasis on frontier exploration results in art, philosophy, science and technology while paying attention to topics such as survival crisis, cultural alienation, social care, body language, emotional barriers, and future testing ground. The interaction between virtual and real worlds, exploration of experimental materials, creative knitting texture, and technologies such as 3D printing all have become paths leading designers in a great journey of exploration and design. The processes from identifying clues, making records, carrying out experiments, and making summaries to finally turning ideas into real works have demonstrated the designers' true inquiry into the real world and their imagination of the future world.
This edition of Youth Art Festival is co-hosted by Zhejiang Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Zhejiang Provincial Department of Education, Zhejiang Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, Publicity Department of the CPC Hangzhou Municipal Committee, China Academy of Art (CAA), and Zhejiang Conservatory of Music under the guidance of the Publicity Department of CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee and Hangzhou Municipal People's Government. The festival features a wide variety of artistic shows and activities centered on the future and the youth. It is a grand city-wide artistic feast in Hangzhou.
The Youth Art Festival kicked off online and offline. The Youth Art Festival is presented online on CAACOSMOS and West Lake Sky Screen and offline at six venues, namely Zhejiang Exhibition Hall, West Lake Art Museum, Zhejiang Art Museum, World Tourism Museum (1368 Xiangxi Road), Quan Shanshi Art Center, and Yichuang Town, with a total exhibition area of approximately 70,000 square meters. Over 3,000 works from more than 2,500 Class of 2023 graduates are showcased. Over 2,000 young artists, designers, writers, and scholars have gathered online for this youthful art event.
In its fifth edition this year, the Youth Art Festival has become a youthful city-wide event. It meets the spiritual needs of the general public as a regional cultural event, serving as an important event brand in the Zhijiang Culture Industrial Belt. In addition, with a focus on cultural development in the new era, it is a good way to better tell the stories of Zhejiang and Hangzhou externally, deepen and expand the core socialist values internally, scout out new artists able to shoulder national rejuvenation responsibilities in the new era, provoke thinking on the development of contemporary Chinese culture, and seek answers from the young generation.
CAA's Youth Art Festival has helped to fully unlock the power of art and innovation, inspiring young people with art and facilitating efforts to make the city of Hangzhou, which blends tradition and modernity, a destination and spiritual home for young artists worldwide and a world cradle of cultural innovation in the post-pandemic era.
The Unwalled Academy has started a new journey from Hangzhou!
