A4 Art Museum
Building 21, Luxetown Mountaintop Plaza, No,18 Lushan Avenue Section 2, Shuangliu District, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
Tel: 86(028)85761265
Email: a4office@a4am.cn
A4X Art Center
Luxelakes Eco Art Center, Shuangliu District, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
A4 Kids
Luxelakes Eco Art Center, Shuangliu District, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
A4 Residency
Luhu Eco-City, Shuangliu District, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00AM to 6:00PM (last entry at 5:30 PM)
Closed on Monday (except during the Spring Festival, open on public holidays)
Hot pot is a slow cooking method which features a simmering pot of soup stock at the dining table, and a variety of raw ingredients. The warm atmosphere makes people feel comfortable and relaxed by chatting, eating and drinking around the table. Here, hotpot serves as a tool of communication and establishes connections. While eating together represents a way of socially interacting, food sharing suggests social integration of people from different backgrounds. For instance, artist Rirkrit Tiravanija cooked Thai meals for visitors in 303 Gallery (1992), providing participants with ‘a specific social space’. Comparatively, more recent socially engaged art projects have embodied social values for the public to contemplate their own situatedness, such as Conflict Kitchen (Rubin & Weleski, 2010). Hotpot culture is very popular in the Chinese community in the UK and Jiang carried out an art practice related to the Hotpot Banquet in London: Hanxuan Jiang, Kai Wang and Bingyang Li are at a happy, relaxing hot pot banquet (2019). They cooperated in cooking and shooting while sharing opinions on filmmaking, food and emotions.
By sharing food, we can activate the communication between individuals and reunderstand the way we get along with others. The project uses hot pot as a medium to open a deep dialogue between individuals, trying to understand the relationship between people and find our place in daily life. As the signature food of Chengdu, hot pot creates a sense of cultural connection and familiarity among strangers sitting together. It allows some people to meet and have a sincere exchange.
The Hotpot Banquet will invite six participants who join Hanxuan Jiang’s “Conversations in the Kitchen” project, and the public is welcome to join the talk after Hot Pot Banquet.
