In response to the question "where is poetry?" an Old Irish text suggests as an answer "i ndorchaidhéta"–literally, in darkness. 1 The multimedia installation Night by the artist Han Mengyun points to a similar inspiration, a notion of darkness as a paradoxical site of emotional illumination and possible emancipation.
In the installation, an atmosphere of night is created by a wooden ceiling structure covered with indigo-dyed fabric that was strenuously pounded with egg whites over a period of nine months by the Dong women of China. Screened under this artificial darkness is a film based on the artist’s recent poems. The multimedia exhibition attempts to concoct a nocturnal theater that reflects and intensifies the artist’s inner poetic vision and humanitarian concerns. Bewitched into a peculiar night mode, the viewers are prompted to reflect on versions of darkness: the unfathomable darkness of the womb that harbors life and wisdom; the veiled labor of women; those that are hidden, confined, abandoned, aborted, those who have never managed to weather the night and glimpse a beam of light.
Yet the night is not entirely terrifying as it also gives birth to poetry, which is hinted at in Han’s anthology of poems, published as part of the exhibition: the nightly presence of the moon suggests a possibility, even if it has never been fully seen.
1. “An Old-Irish Tract on the Privileges and Responsibilities of Poets.” Ériu 13 (1942): 38.
诗歌出自哪里？早期爱尔兰文本提出了一个答案：“i ndorchaidhéta” ， 即“在黑暗中”1。艺术家韩梦云的多媒体装置《夜》（Night）指出了类似的灵感，她将黑暗作为能够照亮及解放情感的矛盾场所。
悬挂于木质天花板结构的是侗族妇女在九个月期间不断晒染、用蛋清反复捶打而成的亮布，近乎发黑的湛蓝成为了夜的幕布，于幽微的光线下隐隐发亮。在这人造的黑夜之下放映的是艺术家为此次展览创作的一部诗意影像。基于近期书写的四首诗，艺术家试图拟造一个反映和加剧其内心诗意愿景和人文关切的夜间剧场，引导观众反思黑暗的意义：孕育生命和智慧的子宫的深不可测，女性被遮蔽的劳作, 那些被遗弃、扼杀、消失、轻视、从未克服黑夜、未能怒视光明的存在。
即使如此，艺术家认为让诗歌浮现的夜晚并不那么可怕。正如展览中平行呈现的诗集所暗示的，存在于夜间的月亮昭示着一种可能性，即使它从未完全展示自身。
1. “关于诗人特权和责任的古爱尔兰小册子”，《Ériu》1942年，卷13，第38页。
About the Artist
Han Mengyun (b.1989, Wuhan, China) is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, installation, text and video, as well as nodes of their intersections. Han primarily works with painting that combines various traditions by way of integrating craft and installations inspired by religious and vernacular architectures. In her work Night (2022), Han treats the space as the canvas, creating a multilayered installation that renders the poetic and emotional space of her mind in response to external turmoils that gave birth to her poems and film.
Han received her B. A in Studio Art from Bard College in the US in 2012 and has pursued the study of Sanskrit at various institutions such as Kyoto University before she completed her MFA at the University of Oxford with a research focus on Classical Indology and Indian aesthetic theories in 2018. She has worked at the British Museum and has previously taught at Rutgers University. Recent exhibitions: “The Glass Bead Game” (Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland, 2022); “The Pavilion of Three Mirrors” (Ad-Diriyah Biennale: Feeling the Stones, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 2021); “The Dwelling Place of the Other in Me” (Power Station of Art, Shanghai, 2021) etc.
韩梦云的艺术实践跨越了绘画、装置、文本和视频，以及它们之间的交汇处。她的创作植根于不同文化间的传播与沟通，贯穿着她对传统绘画媒介的推重，以及对工艺手法的扩展，乃至对建筑构架和图像空间关系的思考——她的作品旨在展现图像生产背后的宗教和文化语境。在其作品《夜》（2022年）中，艺术家视空间为画布，构筑多层次的影像装置，呈现内心的诗意和情感空间，以回应社会外部的动荡，而这些动荡催生了她的诗歌和影像。
韩梦云，1989年生于中国武汉，现居伦敦。2012年于美国巴德学院获得纯艺学士学位，后于京都大学研习梵文，并于2018年在牛津大学完成纯艺硕士学位，研究方向为古典印度学与印度美学。她曾就职于大英博物馆，曾任教于罗格斯大学。 近期展览：《玻璃球游戏》 (Art Basel, 瑞士巴塞尔, 2022）, 《三镜厅》 ( 迪里耶当代艺术双年展《摸着石头过河》 , 沙特阿拉伯，2021) , 《未有名目的言说》 （上海当代艺术博物馆， 2021)。
