"Nurturing Textuality": Installation Project at Art 021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair 2025 BEYOND Section

Nina K Ekman 妮娜•埃克曼、茅矛 Mao Mao

栽种文本 Nurturing Textuality, 2025

80cm x 310cm x 1300cm

Double-sided hanging embroidery, painting, punch needle, Steel

In a modern world that leans heavily on arrangement, syntax, and evidence, we have grown unaccustomed to things as they originally are. If something is not recorded in words and images, did it really happen? If a thought is not described in language, does it truly exist? Planting Text, jointly presented by Norwegian artist Nina K Ekman and Chinese artist Mao Mao, offers viewers a direction for reflection. The work attempts to restore nature’s plain, unadorned record of all things in their initial state, a record made without the interference of consciousness or free will.

The installation’s arrangement draws inspiration from the folding screens of classical Suzhou gardens, allowing viewers to shift their position and experience changing scenes, observing the work from different angles. Ekman’s contribution consists of six embroidered and dyed textile pieces depicting the saguaro cactus. Using fiber materials she has found in the natural world, Ekman records the “text” the saguaro leaves behind in the form of life itself: it grows, endures, then collapses and dies. These natural processes compose a kind of text without human grammar.

The golden sculpture at the front of the installation is Mao Mao’s contribution. Her inspiration comes from paper crumpled in an unconscious state. The creases in paper are the purest traces a hand can leave on a material, free from the manipulation of language, and instead shaped by habitual muscle memory that imparts a distinctive textual information to the page. There are no words on the paper, yet the manner and force of crumpling inadvertently record a person’s condition in that moment. The artist then uses a golden material to solidify this fleeting transformation into a form that can endure, like a historical text on a stele that can no longer be deciphered.

在这个极度依赖编排、语法与证据的现代，人们已经不太习惯一件事原本的样子。若一件事情没有被文字和影像记录——那么事情发生过吗？若一个念头没有被语言所描述——那么念头存在吗？挪威艺术家妮娜埃克曼（Nina K Ekman）与中国艺术家茅矛共同呈现的《栽种文本》，带给各位观众一种思考的方向，这件作品试图还原自然在没有意识和自由意志的干扰下，对万物初始和无为状态下质朴的记录。

装置排列的灵感来自于苏州园林中的屏风，观众可以移步换景，从不同的角度观察这件作品。埃克曼的部分呈现的是六幅巨人柱仙人掌的刺绣织染。埃克曼正是用她在自然界中寻得的纤维材料，记录巨柱仙人掌以生命的形态留下的文本，它们生长、忍耐、再倒塌死去，这些自然的过程构成了一种没有人类语法的文本。装置前方金色的雕塑是艺术家茅矛的部分。她的灵感来自于在无意识状态下揉皱的纸张。纸的褶皱是⼿留给材料最纯粹的痕迹，它没有受到语言的操纵，而是用习惯性的肌肉记忆赋予纸张独特的文本信息。纸上没有文字，但揉纸的方式、力度都无意间记录了人在此刻的状态。艺术家再使用金色的材料将这种变化的瞬间固化成可以耐久保存的形态，就像石碑上无法解密的历史本文。

在这个极度依赖编排、语法与证据的现代，人们已经不太习惯一件事原本的样子。若一件事情没有被文字和影像记录——那么事情发生过吗？若一个念头没有被语言所描述——那么念头存在吗？挪威艺术家妮娜·埃克曼（Nina K Ekman）与中国艺术家茅矛共同呈现的《栽种文本》，带给各位观众一种思考的方向，这件作品试图还原自然在没有意识和自由意志的干扰下，对万物初始和无为状态下质朴的记录。

本作品排列的灵感来自于苏州园林中的屏风，观众可以移步换景，从不同的角度观察这件作品。埃克曼的部分呈现的是六幅巨人柱仙人掌的刺绣织染。埃克曼正是用她在自然界中寻得的纤维材料，记录巨柱仙人掌以生命的形态留下的文本，它们生长、忍耐、再倒塌死去，这些自然的过程构成了一种没有人类语法的文本。装置前方金色的雕塑是艺术家茅矛的部分。她的灵感来自于在无意识状态下揉皱的纸张。纸的褶皱是⼿留给材料最纯粹的痕迹，它没有受到语言的操纵，而是用习惯性的肌肉记忆赋予纸张独特的文本信息。纸上没有文字，但揉纸的方式、力度都无意间记录了人在此刻的状态。艺术家再使用金色的材料将这种变化的瞬间固化成可以耐久保存的形态，就像石碑上无法解密的历史本文。