189 Mailing Art

We would like to apply for the Web Residency »Solidarity is a verb« as we are currently working on a mailing art project called 189 Mailing Art and we think it responds to the theme of »Solidarity is a verb«. We started this project on October 9, 2020. It is an ongoing mail-art project between Singapore and Shenzhen City. It was started by Effie in Shenzhen City, by mailing two paper plaster sculptures made by herself. We are going to take the turn to rework and make changes to the objects and sending them to each other again and again. We are now on the sixth exchange.

Dongyan Chen & Effie Li / Singapore, Singapore / Shenzen, China — Aug 30, 2021

Akademie Schloss Solitude - 189 Mailing Art

Chen Li, Mailing Art 189, 2021. Courtesy the artist.

We used to work on different kinds of media, but we always want to do something together. Due to COVID-19, the only way for us to collaborate is through the Internet or mailing. During the process, there were and are going to be a lot of problems and changes. Our ideas keep changing, as we have no idea of how these objects were being modified by another person. Meanwhile, we are also trying to explore different ways of archiving both online and offline and we believe this web residency will be a great opportunity for us to explore more ideas about showing it online.

Dongyan Chen and Effie Li both received a Bachelor of Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and most of their individual works were concerned with the realm of the unconscious, self-consciousness, dreams, and psychoanalysis. Currently, Dongyan is based in Singapore and she works more with video and sounds, while Effie is based in Shenzhen and she works mostly as a sculptor and painter. 189 Mailing Art is the first collaboration between these two artists.