Aspiring to rejuvenate Chinese arts and culture, this summer MGM has once again joined hands with internationally acclaimed cross-media artist Jennifer Wen Ma to present a new, sublimated large-scale immersive sculptural landscape installation, A Landscape of Metamorphosis: No End to End, at MGM COTAI.
This latest addition to the MGM Chairman’s Collection is an ever-altering 3D Shan Shui installation, taking inspiration from traditional art forms, philosophies, aesthetic theories, and practices, such as Literati landscape painting, classical garden design, and the Book of Rites. Jennifer Wen Ma fuses these with cutting edge technologies, and invites audiences to immerse themselves into, and become part of, the art piece.
Taking form over the past two years, the artist’s unique honeycomb-structured paper sculpture, which utilizes a laser-cutting technique to mimic ancient Chinese accordion folds, builds an immersive, handscroll-like painting under the roof of MGM Cotai’s Spectacle. The work comprises several thousand square metres of paper, folded in thousands of sheets and meticulously painted and hand sewn together. The installation also marks the second partnership between MGM and Jennifer Wen Ma.
“I was actually here in 2019 for the first Art Macao,” comments the artist. “That was the first time I created a work in the Spectacle, which is a very unique space. It’s actually really rare to have a public art space that’s under a large glass dome like this, so when the MGM team invited me to consider something for a long-term installation, I thought it was a really great challenge to rethink how to use the space and how to use paper, which is my primary material right now.”
The sculptural garden, in the form of three islands inspired by Macau’s geographic composition, has been made to be a site-specific work that integrates seamlessly into the public space of the Spectacle. The three islands together are reminiscent of a landscape painting, welcoming everyone to enjoy the ambience of a classic Lingnan style garden. Above the paper sculpture garden are three butterfly-shaped flying creatures hanging in the air, inspired by Rorschach image-making and the shape of three Chinese characters, “nothingness”, “exhaustive” and “limit”.
“The work is like a three-dimensional landscape painting, like a long traditional scroll that you can open, but in this case, the audience can enter into it and a walk around,” explains Jennifer. “Next to them are what I call digital ponds to activate the space in a different way, and out of this landscape come three butterflies, abstract butterflies that soar out of the landscape into the sky. That’s the metamorphosis component of the whole installation.”
“Change” remains a core theme of the art piece – as it offers a different look and feel from different perspectives, time and audiences. Incorporating the Five Elements mentioned in the Book of Rites that describe the rotation of the seasons, the artist depicts the theme with two sets of paper sculptures, themed Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter, which alter season by season. The Spring and Summer set represents the fresh revival of liveliness with hints of tender greens, pinks and reds; whilst the Autumn and Winter set coats the atrium with darker hues with sparkles of silver to mimic the calm, snowy hills during the chilly days.
“One of the reasons I’ve designed two seasons is because paper doesn’t have the strength to stand for long periods of time. So I designed two rotations to allow for the paper to rest during these periods and also to create something new for the audience. The space is already very dynamic during the day with sunlight, versus the nighttime when there is very dramatic lighting. We hope audiences will come at different times to see how these different seasons unfold.”
The islands and the ponds beside them, all embedded with LED panels as their bases, reflect coloured beams that change along the dynamics of nature. Audiences are welcome to walk around the paper sculptures or across the Spectacle to experience the art from different perspectives, and to witness the metamorphosis of the artwork within a day by the changing of lights and colours.
“This time we are also taking the installation to new heights and exploring using LED panels to create more ambiance and to bring different perspectives to the artwork,” comments Cristina Kuok, Director of Arts and Cultural Development at MGM. “With the LED content we can we can be very flexible, so even for festive days we will adopt different colours and patterns and themes.”
Jennifer Wen Ma concludes: “I’m trying to employ different ideas rooted in Chinese history and traditions, but showing them in a brand new way and also employing a lot of concepts from Chinese aesthetics. I intentionally haven’t use very saturated colours, but rather given room for people to imagine. Hopefully they will be captivated by some of this beauty, even if it’s just for a few moments and let their imagination grow more with the colours and forms.”
