Alfred University News

Xiaowen Chen co-curates Beijing Art and Technology Biennale

The inaugural Beijing Art and Technology Biennale (BATB) will be held at 798CUBE from September 22, 2022 to January 31, 2023. With its theme "Synthetic Ecology," this inaugural edition will be directed by Xiewei Song and Hera Lee, and co-curated by Xiaowen Chen, professor of printmaking in Alfred University's School of Art and Design, and Naiyi Wang.


The inaugural Beijing Art and Technology Biennale (BATB) will be held at 798CUBE from September 22, 2022 to January 31, 2023. With its theme "Synthetic Ecology," this inaugural edition will be directed by Xiewei Song and Hera Lee, and co-curated by Xiaowen Chen, professor of printmaking in Alfred University's School of Art and Design, and Naiyi Wang.

According to the website, the Beijing Art and Technology Biennale (BATB) aims to explore the entanglement of life in symbiontics. As a metaphor, “synthetic” probes the possibilities of reconfiguring nature by examining the post-human ecological imagination, forming a new ontological approach to equality. This concept questions the dominant position of human beings in ecological systems, confronts the dynamism of all things on earth, and re-examines these complex and intimate interconnections.

Synthetic Ecology is composed of three parts: Radical Nature, Entangled Life, and Interwoven Evolution. Expanding the horizons of our thinking from human/society to everything/universe, these concepts ponder the possibilities of future evolution from both planetary perspective and planetary scale.

The BATB takes the form of a constellation of exhibitions and initiatives, and brings together 50 renowned artists, scientists and ecologists from all over the world to respond to the salient symptoms of our “entangled era,” where calamity and vitality are contemporaneous phenomena. The Biennale will feature the China-debut of 25 artworks, with 15 new pieces created during 2021–2022. In addition, the Climate Clock project, which was presented at the 26th United Nations Climate Conference in Glasgow in 2021 (COP26), will also participate in the Biennale. This is the first time this pressing, reflective work will be shown in China.

Together with the thematic exhibition, the Biennale launches the special project Climate Care, to be among the first initiatives in China dedicated to exploring the convergence of art, technology and climate change, while seeking to evoke action on the climate crisis in all its facets. Since its inception, the Climate Care initiative has continued to promote innovative movements, launching Climate Clock #ActInTimeChina, the Climate Declaration series, with the Climate Negotiation program coming during the 27th UN Climate Conference (COP27) from November 6–18, 2022. The newly commissioned projects from Carla Chan and Entangled Others (Sofia Crespo and Feileacan McCormick) will be launched alongside the initiative. Furthermore, Climate Care seeks to bring together Web3 and blockchain technology to build the Climate DAO, opening up new pathways for climate action.