“These photos came from the thousands of negatives accumulated during our meandering working trips over the past years. Each shot seems to capture space and time, but it’s in fact a study of our heart that constantly affirms the self. This action originates from the loneliness and void brought by the chaos, cold, and darkness in the human world that we felt while growing up.
This void compels us to confront history and nature, to seek experience and warmth from the traces left by ancestors. It made us realize that accepting incidents and challenging time are actually a way of assuaging those feelings, because those traces are concrete evidence of our civilization. This is where the spirit of traditional craftsmanship and the human emotions channeled by artworks from different times converge.
Through constant shooting, selecting and editing photos to create connections, through studying traditional skills and current techniques in fabricating and mounting photos, we achieve our ultimate objective: to express our emotions in the time we live in. “
(Extracted from Birdhead’s quotation).
Extended Biography
THE PROJECT AT GLUCK50
Installation view at Gluck50, 2017
Installation view at Gluck50, 2017
Installation view at Gluck50, 2017
Installation view at Gluck50, 2017
Installation view at Gluck50, 2017
Installation view at Gluck50, 2017
Installation view at Gluck50, 2017
Installation view at Gluck50, 2017
From December 2016 until April 2017 Birdhead will travel through Italy for their new photographic project, followed by the exhibition “Welcome to Birdhead World Again - Italy 2017”, as part of their residency at Gluck50. The exhibition opens on 3rd April and will run until 27th May.
Birdhead’s unique documentary approach entails lensing a huge volume of photographs that capture a broad range of subjects, including snapshots of the duo’s daily lives, activities and travels. These photographs are processed, arranged, and mounted to create each eponymous “Birdhead World.” Presented as matrices, tiled in large arrays, or assembled into collages of new and traditional images and poetry, each bricolage is driven by a distinctive Birdhead semiotics.
This time, Birdhead expand their ever-growing “Birdhead World” to Italy. As much as Birdhead’s works attest to foreign landscapes and countries traversed, this is the document of an interior journey; a form of introspection. The exhibition invites the audience to enter “Birdhead World” to feel the artists’ emotions, aesthetics and interests. If the audience happens to be "model readers" (a concept created by Umberto Eco), then they will be able to follow Birdhead as they break the shackles of time and reality, hearing the echo from ancient time in contemporary life.
ABOUT BIRDHEAD
Birdhead have been working in the medium of analog photography since they were established in 2004. Consisting of duo Song Tao (b. 1979) and Ji Weiyu (b. 1980), their aleatory moniker was born of a computer prompt. The prolific duo has since assembled a huge body of work, taking numerous photographs a year and constantly experimenting with analog photography, collage techniques, and other mixed media. Birdhead have exhibited in museums and galleries the world over. Their works are in the permanent collections of the Tate Modern in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation in Switzerland. Birdhead were also nominated for the inaugural Hugo Boss Asia Art Award in 2013. ShanghART Gallery presented Birdhead’s first solo exhibition in 2005.
