Jiajia Zhang at Coalmine
Solo Show «If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious», April 23 until July 10, 2021
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Exhibition View Jiajia Zhang Solo Show «If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious» at Coalmine, Winterthur, 2021 / Courtesy: the artist and Coalmine
Jiajia Zhang at Coalmine
Jiajia Zhang's works range from documenting reality to exploring fiction as a narrative element. Fragments of reality are surveyed for their poetic and utopian potential. Employing intertwining, repeating, emerging, and disappearing images and texts within the exhibition, Jiajia Zhang creates a new narrative that challenges conventional readings of images and stories. Her visual worlds remain at the same time personal and generic, referencing different spaces (private, public, imaginary) as well as the invisible transactions in the world of the visible.
"If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious" examines time as a referential dimension for understanding our world. Time as a division into units, into working hours and leisure days, for instance, and time as lived experience. Especially in the light of the current pandemic, we have been caught in a perpetual state of passivity and action for over a year now. It is this ambivalent interstice that interests Jiajia Zhang: "Between going outside and withdrawing into one's own home, between entering as a guest and being rejected as a potential virus carrier, between freshening up and crumpling, between an opening and refusal".
In the first exhibition room, we encounter a series of photographs in different formats. At first glance, the images seem disparate in their choice of motifs and, at the same time, strangely familiar. Jiajia Zhang photographed the objects, people, and situations in public spaces during various trips – for example, in New York City, Shanghai, or Berlin. The images enter into a dialogue with colored text panels that revolve around the concept of time in its various facets, similar to "poetic commercial breaks".
The two video works in the cabinet, "Script (Emily)" and "Script (Allie)", are clearly located and refer to iconic feature films and series, exploring themes of gentrification, self-promotion, technological dominance, and media overload. The exhibition spaces at the back deepen the research on the abstract dimension of time into an installation setting, with a large projected video work and a continuous collection of notes about various aspects of time.
Jiajia Zhang's exhibition at Coalmine challenges perceptions of time, reality, and narrative, inviting viewers to reflect on the complexities of our contemporary world and the interplay between personal experiences and societal structures.
Exhibition View Jiajia Zhang Solo Show «If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious» at Coalmine, Winterthur, 2021 / Courtesy: the artist and Coalmine
Exhibition View Jiajia Zhang Solo Show «If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious» at Coalmine, Winterthur, 2021 / Courtesy: the artist and Coalmine
Exhibition View Jiajia Zhang Solo Show «If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious; view on Jiajia Zhan, Untitled (Go Outside), 2021, C-Print on Aluminum, 30 x 40cm; Hedonic Shift (Starlet), 2021, 50 x 70cm» at Coalmine, Winterthur, 2021 / Courtesy: the artist and Coalmine
Exhibition View Jiajia Zhang Solo Show «If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious» at Coalmine, Winterthur, 2021 / Courtesy: the artist and Coalmine
Exhibition View Jiajia Zhang Solo Show «If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious; view on Jiajia Zhan, Script (Allie), 2021, video, color, no sound, 3’30“, loop» at Coalmine, Winterthur, 2021 / Courtesy: the artist and Coalmine
Exhibition View Jiajia Zhang Solo Show «If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious» at Coalmine, Winterthur, 2021 / Courtesy: the artist and Coalmine
Exhibition View Jiajia Zhang Solo Show «If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious» at Coalmine, Winterthur, 2021 / Courtesy: the artist and Coalmine
Exhibition View Jiajia Zhang Solo Show «If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious» at Coalmine, Winterthur, 2021 / Courtesy: the artist and Coalmine
Exhibition View Jiajia Zhang Solo Show «If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious; view on Jiajia Zhan, Hedonic Shift (Beach), 2021, C-Print on Aluminum, 50 x 70cm» at Coalmine, Winterthur, 2021 / Courtesy: the artist and Coalmine
Exhibition View Jiajia Zhang Solo Show «If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious; view on Jiajia Zhan, Hedonic Shift (Starlet), 2021, 50 x 70cm» at Coalmine, Winterthur, 2021 / Courtesy: the artist and Coalmine
Exhibition View Jiajia Zhang Solo Show «If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious; view on Jiajia Zhan, Filmstill: Is Sun Still or Moving?, 2021, HD video, color, sound, 11’34”, loop» at Coalmine, Winterthur, 2021 / Courtesy: the artist and Coalmine
Exhibition View Jiajia Zhang Solo Show «If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious; view on Jiajia Zhan, Filmstill: Is Sun Still or Moving?, 2021, HD video, color, sound, 11’34”, loop» at Coalmine, Winterthur, 2021 / Courtesy: the artist and Coalmine
Exhibition View Jiajia Zhang Solo Show «If Every Day Were a Holiday, Towns Would Be More Mysterious; view on Jiajia Zhan, Filmstill: Is Sun Still or Moving?, 2021, HD video, color, sound, 11’34”, loop» at Coalmine, Winterthur, 2021 / Courtesy: the artist and Coalmine
