Chongqing - The Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Chongqing has put forward an idea of recycling surplus bags. Meanwhile, the Experimental Art School of Sichuan Fine Art Institute led a dance to an art project named Disappearing River, that addresses the environmental problems of urban rivers. As a result of an interaction, teachers and students have used these surplus bags as part of their materials for artworks in this project, Li An Phoa, an ecologist from the Netherlands also attended this project by her work Drinkable Rivers.

The exhibition of the art project was curated by Lipeng Jin and Yuqiao Mou, teachers of the Experimental Art School of Sichuan Fine Art Institute. It opened on Nov 14th. Bart Pauwels, the counselor for infrastructure, Water Management, and Environment in the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Beijing, visited the exhibition and expressed his vision of the communication and cooperation between the Netherlands and Chongqing in environmental improvement and urban construction.

As a consequence of urbanization, tens of thousands of rivers vanished in the city of Chongqing. The Huxi River is faced with a similar fate of disappearance on physical, visual, psychological, and cultural levels. The River is a cradle of towns, cities, and human civilization. Deploying the connective and healing power of art, the project is a regenerative process intended to make the disappearing river reemerged and re-enchanted, creating a sense of home and belonging, and the connections between humans and nature.

Some Artworks introduction

Artists picked up garbage from the Huxi River in the university town and transformed them into pictures by cyanotype. The process showed us a new perspective of these materials, we made them spiral-shaped to metaphor the swirling ocean garbage circle.

Teenage students of Yisuo art institute have painted on cloth bags. The pictures were based on their imagination and hope for rivers and oceans.

Artists made surplus bags into bricks to built a wall to tell their stories. The relationship between humans and rivers is fragile. The river was cut into different parts by the process of urbanization, and the longwall separated it from passersby. Only those who are deliberately searching for the river can get a glimpse of the secret river behind the wall.

Li An Phoa is a whole systems ecologist, philosopher, and entrepreneur, who engages people through outdoor learning experiences and initiates projects around landscapes, food, and water. She started Drinkable Rivers, as indicators for healthy living. She walked 1061km from the source-to-sea walk along the river Meuse-Maas and engaged local people to care for Drinkable Rivers and in a water quality citizen science research.