Work Statement:

乌海是我出生的城市，位于内蒙古西部，是一个正式建立只有四十多年的典型的资源型城市，因煤而兴、 依矿而建。

2017 年至 2019 年几次的故乡重游，看到童年生活的地区已经变成了一片废墟，让我开始想要了解祖国工业历史、我出生的城市和我的家庭历史。仅仅几十年的开采，乌海已经是一座资源枯竭型城市，如同生命垂危的老人，经过高速而短暂的发展后，回过头来她面临的问题非常多，比如经济结构失衡、生态环境破坏严重、失业和贫困人口问题等。 地面塌陷，地裂缝，土地资源破坏，污染物排放等问题时时刻刻威胁着周边的土地、建筑、工人和居民。2008 年起，乌海市开始对棚户区近 20 万人口进行搬迁，几代工人和居民习以为常的生活戛然而止，本就朴素的建筑在十年间迅速地破败，曾经为国家做出不可磨灭贡献的老矿区变得破旧不堪，这片失去价值的土地好像正在被加速遗忘。残存的建筑上不仅有时代的痕迹，还写满私人记忆 : 童年的启蒙绘画老师在二十多年前画的壁画 ；父母三十年前举办婚宴的小餐馆 ；父母第一间共同生活的居所 ; 父亲第一次参加工作所在的矿业公司 ; 母亲在生育我之后安装节育环的私人小诊所……这些工业文明遗留令我着迷，破败的一砖一瓦都和身体、社会、时间、权力、政治有着千丝万缕的联系，告诉当下过去是如何影响着现在。在废墟中，衰老与新生并存 ，对空间的焦虑与好奇并存，个人记忆和集体历史并存。这里的人们以健康甚至生命为代价浸泡在煤炭的粉尘中，并且几十年间我和我的家人都是如此平常地生活在这样的环境中。我的创作意图更多的是针对工业化发展中被遗忘的历史，和处于巨变中的城市现状的一种质疑和反思。这同时也是一个全球性问题。

这个世界上的工业城市总是试图割裂和抛弃自己的工业历史。而所谓城市的“生命尽头”是无尽的，这个“尽头”在世界各地终日重复。记忆和记忆的载体在不同的时空不断地重塑和修改，其含义不断地被叠加或去除。同时记忆的内涵变得更加模糊和空洞，无限地接近消亡。照片、影像、拓片、书籍等等，都是我捡拾家乡的记忆碎片重新形成的记忆载体，然而企图对抗遗忘本身又是荒诞的，不过是又进一步消解了记忆。

Wuhai, the city where I was born, is located in the western part of Inner Mongolia, and is a typical resource-based city that was officially established only 40 years ago, and was founded on coal and built on mining.

After revisiting my hometown several times between 2017 and 2019 and seeing the area where I spent my childhood in ruins, I began to want to learn more about the industrial history of my country, the city where I was born, and the history of my family. Only a few decades of mining, Wuhai is already a resource-exhausted city, like an old man whose life is dying, after a high-speed and short-lived development, looking back she faces a lot of problems, such as imbalance of economic structure, serious ecological and environmental damage, unemployment and poverty population problems. Ground subsidence, cracks in the ground, destruction of land resources, pollutant emissions and other problems threaten the neighbouring land, buildings, workers and residents all the time. 2008 saw the relocation of nearly 200,000 people from the shanty towns of Wuhai City, and the life that generations of workers and residents had taken for granted came to an abrupt end, with the austere buildings falling into disrepair rapidly in the space of a decade. The old mining area, which had once made an indelible contribution to the country, became dilapidated, and it seemed as if this worthless land was being forgotten at an accelerated pace. The remaining buildings bear not only the traces of the times, but also personal memories: the murals painted by my childhood drawing teacher more than twenty years ago; the small restaurant where my parents held their wedding banquet thirty years ago; the house where my parents lived for the first time; the mining company where my father first joined the workforce; the private clinic where my mother had an IUD fitted after giving birth to me... ...I was fascinated by these remnants of industrial civilisation, the crumbling bricks and mortar inextricably linked to the body, society, time, power and politics, telling the present how the past affects the present. In the ruins, aging and renewal coexist, anxiety and curiosity about space coexist, personal memory and collective history coexist. People here are immersed in coal dust at the cost of their health and even their lives, and my family and I have been living in such an environment for decades as a matter of course. My intention is to question and reflect on the forgotten history of industrialisation and the current state of the city in the midst of dramatic change. This is also a global issue.

The industrial cities of the world are always trying to sever and abandon their industrial history. The so-called "end of life" of the city is endless, and this "end" is repeated day after day all over the world. Memory and its carriers are constantly being reshaped and modified in different times and spaces, and their meanings are constantly being added to or removed from them. At the same time, the connotations of memory become more vague and empty, infinitely close to extinction. Photographs, images, topiaries, books and so on are all memory carriers that I have re-formed by picking up fragments of my hometown's memories. However, attempting to fight against oblivion itself is absurd, and only further dissolves the memories.

Artist Bio:

画画和拍照，是我与吸引我的事物产⽣联系、互相触碰的⽅式， 我与被观看的那些事物的距离总是犹犹豫豫忽远忽近不断变化。丧⽓的东⻄⼤概有⼀种诗意，我常被表象的脆弱深深吸引，⽐如⽇渐衰败的⽪肤、残破的建筑表⾯、隐隐不安的⽣活碎⽚、不断演变重构的记忆，这些时间的断层解剖着不应该被丢掉的过去，影响着当下和未来。捡拾和回收这些碎⽚，是我对抗遗忘的⽅式。

关于疾病的探索始于家⼈的突然⽣病，在拥有极少疾病体验的年纪，给了我巨⼤的冲击。绘画是我从⼉时就持续在做的⼀个动作，这种熟悉的⾏为让我在疾病的冲击中找到确定感。我对失序⾮常敏感，在动荡混乱中重建、修复、制造新的秩序，是更打动我的动作。失序的疾病⽆疑会在绘画中建⽴起新的秩序。

在我看来，家庭，爱情，友情等社会单位总在给予个体能量和失望之间来回摇摆。在周遭环境巨⼤的洪流之中，我与他⼈形成了⼀种脆弱易逝的⾰命队友关系，在时间的漂流中总会因为种种原因负伤或解散，于是休养重组，接着继续负伤或解散。在领会⼀种巨⼤的潜在的不确定性的同时，我们仍然彼此寄托着最强烈的依恋和依赖。我的创作经常围绕这些“队伍”留

下的碎⽚展开，在“打磨抛光”的过程中完成治愈的仪式，然后细细品尝。

Painting and taking photographs are ways for me to create a connection with and touch the things that attract me, and the distance between me and the things that I am looking at is always hesitant and constantly changing, from far away to close to the things that I am looking at. There is a poetic quality to mourning in general, and I am often drawn to the fragility of appearances, such as deteriorating skin, crumbling architectural surfaces, disturbing fragments of life, and evolving and reconstructed memories, as these fault lines in time dissect a past that should not be discarded, and influence the present and the future. Collecting and recycling these fragments is my way of combating forgetfulness.

My exploration of illness began with the sudden illness of a family member, which hit me hard at an age when I had very little experience of illness. Drawing was an ongoing activity for me from childhood, and this familiarity allowed me to find a sense of certainty in the midst of the shock of illness. I am sensitive to disorder, and the action of rebuilding, repairing, and creating new order in the midst of turmoil and chaos is the action that moves me more than anything else. The disease of disorder can no doubt create a new order in painting.

In my view, social units such as family, love, and friendship always oscillate back and forth between giving energy to the individual and disappointment. Amidst the vast flood of circumstances around me, I have formed a fragile and perishable relationship with other people as a kind of team, wounded or disbanded for one reason or another in the drift of time, and then recuperated and reorganized, and then continued to be wounded or disbanded. While appreciating a great potential uncertainty, we still have the strongest attachment and dependence on each other. My work often revolves around the fragments left behind by these "teams".

My creations often revolve around the fragments left behind by these "teams", completing the healing ritual in the process of "polishing" and then savoring them.

Yaqun Han/韩亚群 b.1992, China

Education

Bachelor of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University

本科毕业于清华⼤学美术学院

Master's Degree at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Dijon

硕⼠毕业于法国第戎国⽴⾼等美术学院

Exhibitions

“荒草”驻地艺术创作营，德化，福建（2022）

B ARTS&J Gallery 群展“在阳光房里”，BA 艺术中心，上海（2022）

第八届上海青年艺术博览会“艺气风发”，海派艺术馆，上海（2022）

J Gallery 秋季群展“What are you looking at?”，J Gallery，上海 （2022）

“境域”旅法新锐艺术家作品联展，J Gallery，上海（2022）

Ormesson 摄影节，法国 Ormesson-sur-Marne（2021）

欧洲世界遗产日特邀艺术家，讲座“两个世界，两种⻅证”，罗丹美术馆，法国欧坦（2020）

第二届欧坦当代艺术双年展，“什么都没有丢失，什么都没有创造，一切都改变了”，罗丹美术馆，法国欧坦 （2020）

“Fenêtre（窗）2016-2018”韩亚群个人摄影展，Mansart 剧院，法国第戎 （2019）

AFIH“将生活·以艺术”北京城市艺术博览会，北京（2019）

中法艺术家联展“Vitalité（生命力）”，创意方文化中心，法国巴黎 （2019）

中法艺术家作品展“Hors champ（画外空间）”，勒芒大学，法国勒芒（2015）

群展，当代中国名家油画展，当代中国书法艺术馆，内蒙古乌海（2014）

群展，清华大学美术学院本科生毕业展，清华大学美术学院，北京（2014）

群展，第三届清华大学美术学院优秀学生作品展“爆破”，清华大学美术学院，北京（2013）

群展，清华大学美术学院油画系群展“新声”，清华大学美术学院，北京（2013）

群展，水木清华造型艺术作品展，宋庄美院艺术中心，北京 （2013）