Light fostering place
灯光寄养所
In 2018, Zhang Zheyi was invited by the Echigo-Tsumari Art Trieannale. He travelled to Matsudai Niigata to install a project. The Japanese edition of "Light Fostering Place" is different from the Huajiadi Beijing edition in 2017, based on different social conditions of the two places. Beijing is the city of "northern drifters". Echigo-Tsumari, on the other hand, has a sparse and ageing population. The village was once dying. Young people including the curator Fram Kitagawa left for big cities as soon as they came of age. Following their departure, the "lamps" which kept them company growing up were left behind. The illumination was left at the dark end of the time tunnel. The fostering place in this project is the deserted Nunagwa Primary School. The locally collected lamps were re-illuminated in the classroom on the second floor during the Art Festival. Even the departed came to the site in silent communication with the re-illuminated lights. Time and space was frozen then and there. As the artist suggested: “Light may not be in the same sphere with us, yet, in this space "lights" travel through space and time.
2018年，张哲溢收到了大地艺术祭——越后妻有三年展的邀请，前往日本新泻县松代町再次进行一个项目。日本版的《灯光寄养所》与之前北京花家地版有所不同，这一点是基于两个地域所面对的社会现状不一样而决定的。北京是“北漂”之城，是“人来之地”。而越后妻有人口稀少且老龄化严重，乡村曾奄奄一息，很多人包括策展人北川富朗在内都选择了在成年后离开这里前往大城市。他们离开家乡后就将一直陪伴他们成长的“灯”留在了原地，“灯光”则永远留在了黑暗的时光隧道那一头。这次的寄养所地址选在了荒废的奴奈川小学校，当地征集来的所有灯光于展览期间在二楼的教室里再次点亮。那些离开的人也来到了展场，默默地与他们的灯光交流，时光就此凝固了。正如艺术家所言：光或许与我们不在同一空间，可是在这个空间中，“光”穿越了时光。
作品手稿
北京花家地 灯光寄养所
If the form of "The Red Sea" has the quality of grand narrative, the parallel public project "Light Fostering Place" returns to our interiority to show concerns for social phenomena. Zhang Zheyi has collected lamps that are used by dozens of his artist friends and sent those lamps to the "fostering place" and illuminated them at the same time. This project was first implemented on the New Year Eve of 2017 at an apartment in the Huajiadi community near CAFA. Independent curators Duan Shaofeng and Zhang Zheyi worked together to initiate the project. Early avant-garde art was often born in apartments so there was an expression "apartment art", which gradually faded away with the development of artist villages and art districts. Duan Shaofeng still insists on doing apartment projects to this day. He finds the characteristics of apartments most suitable for the "Light Fostering Place". The owners of those "lights" had to leave their city life of creation and return to their family for the Spring Festival. The reciprocity between the artist and the light was broken by secular customs. The "light" in his work symbolizes "self", and in this context gestures the farewell to the self’s inner world as it departs and joins the "Spring Festival Travel Rush". 如果说《红海》在形式上就具有某种宏大叙事的特质，那么同期实施的另外一个公共项目《灯光寄养所》则以回归内心情感关怀社会现象。张哲溢公开征集了几十位同行艺术家平时工作时使用的灯具，送往指定的“寄养”地点，并在特定的时间点亮。这个项目的第一次实施时间是2017年除夕夜，实施地是中央美术学院旁花家地小区内的一间公寓里，由独立策展人段少锋与张哲溢联合发起。早期不少先锋艺术都诞生于公寓中，所以当时有“公寓艺术”这一提法，“公寓艺术”随着画家村与艺术区的崛起慢慢淡出。段少锋是近几年还在坚持做“公寓艺术”展览的人，他认为公寓的居住属性很适合《灯光寄养所》。“灯光”的所有者们不能免俗地在农历新年到来前纷纷离开创作生活的城市回到血亲家庭之中。灯光与艺术家们平时相互关照的关系被世俗割裂了，这里的“光”在作品中象征着“自我”，“光”的留下其实也是象征着跟自我世界的告别转而投入到“春运”这个群体性行为当中去。
