Introduction of the artist:

SHEN Shaomin (Australia)

No!

Introduction of works:

I Heard the Voice of God, installation, variable size, 2006-2007; 2011

Shenzhou VI is China’s second manned spacecraft of China. It was launched on 12th October 2005 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre. As “the glorious and sacred mission”, it was considered to be “of great significance for elevating China’s prestige in the world, promoting China’s economic, scientific and national defence capabilities and consolidating the national cohesiveness”.

Ancient China used to be called shenzhou, having the same pronunciation, as the ‘land of God’, whilst here, shenzhou with a different second character, literally means the ‘ship of God’, which had travelled to the ‘heavens, the work of His fingers’. Four large fragments broken off from the fuel tank of the Shenzhou rocket are re-appropriated in Shen Shaomin’s installation work, on which an unknown text is transcribed in Braille. The text may be illegible to many of us apart from the visually impaired who are able to touch and read the fragments fallen from space, as if they are a messenger. As the artist reflects, “envisaging the infinity of the universe, human beings are essentially blind”, however, we have become filled with every kind of arrogance, greed, depravity and strife, and seemingly have the control of world with ambitions to understand and challenge the unknown beyond our visibility.

The rocket pieces rest in the spotlight to monumentalise the glory of another human expedition to space, but the fragmented quality somehow visually signals a failure rather than a success, and secretly foretells an ominous future. The Braille, acting as a message from God, is yet to be understood. It is in fact nothing but a selected text from the last book of the Bible – Revelation.