Sculpting the clouds, the embraced mountain
During a ten-day field trip in September 2024, project members recorded, surveyed and documented four of these sites. Through this exhibition, they intend to report and share these field experiences. Strolling through the gallery, visitors will be able to survey these four inscribed landscapes, meet the producers of these inscriptions in the 6th century and their rare visitors in the centuries that followed (picnickers, antiquarians, religious figures, tourists, etc.), through the work carried out on these actors by the Altergraphy project.
Exhibition "Sculpting the clouds, the embraced mountain" (觸石吐雲)
Zheng Daozhao was an official who composed a series of cliff inscriptions in the 6th century CE. His writings, carved into the rock in four mountains in today's Shandong province, are dedicated to the memory of his father, where rock conformations and altars dedicated to Taoist deities are combined.
Visitors will be rare, and these inscriptions have been promoted mainly through estampages - ink reproductions on paper - , particularly in the 19th century, in a scholarly attempt to deconstruct the calligraphic canon and the search for new epigraphic models. It was then that Zheng Daozhao was erected as the "Sage of Northern Calligraphy", a narrative we set out to deconstruct... This is why the tour ends with a "Manifesto for the Death of the Calligrapher".
The exhibition tour is twofold. On the one hand, we invite you to enter the mountains and glimpse the evolving relationship with these sites, from their appropriation in medieval times to the arrival of calligraphy-loving Japanese tourists in the 1980s. On the other hand, we share with you a multi-voiced account of our experiences in the field, while at the same time proposing a thematic itinerary, focusing on the various issues raised by the project and our data collection methods. To grasp these four sites, we have mobilized contemporary and archival photographs, interviews, documentary extracts, various cartographic means, evolving models, original stamps and engraved seal stones.
Exhibition organized by Lia Wei and Kento Ashikari, Francesca Berdin, Killian Cahier, Anna Le Menach, Paula Suméra and Tchou-Tchou Tophoven, with the participation of Laurent Long, Marie-Françoise Plissart, Sakata Gensho and Taneya Senshu.
Echoing the workshop Sinographic Forays into the Epiverse - Arpenter un paysage inscrit (October 15-16, 2024).
Projection and opening
The exhibition opening, open to all, will take place on Tuesday, October 8, from 5pm to 8pm. It will begin with a screening of the provisional cut of two extracts (1min45 and 9 min) from the film "Arpenter un paysage inscrit", in the presence of director Marie-Françoise Plissart and her collaborators. The camera follows a group of students and researchers to four inscribed mountains in Shandong over ten days (September 1-10, 2024), as they document and tame the characters engraved on these cliffs since the 6th century CE.
Guided tours and workshop
Guided tours with free admission will be offered by student members of the Altergraphy project at the following times:
- Thursday October 10 from 10:30 to 11:30 am and from 5 pm to 6 pm
- Thursday October 17 from 10:30 to 11:30 am and from 5 pm to 6 pm
- Thursday October 24 from 10:30 to 11:30 am and from 5 pm to 6 pm
The meeting place is at the Gallery entrance.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a seal engraving workshop, led by Laurent Long, will be offered to undergraduate students on October 11 and 18 from 3pm to 6pm. Information and registration via this link.
Contacts: lia.wei@inalco.fr / evenementiel@inalco.fr
