M8 metropeople MONDAY, MARCH 29, 2010 CHINA DAILY

GLANCE LATEST WORK Workers (2008) and Mrs. West’s Hats (2009) are avail- able from amazon.com, soloshowpublishing.com and her website, helencouchman.com. Helen Couchman’s work, Yellow Lining 12345, will also be on view and for sale at the upcoming A�ordable Arts Beijing Festival in Sanlitun Village from April 24-25.

WANG JING / CHINA DAILY English artist Helen Couchman at work in her Beijing home. Private fantasies, creative vulnerability

By CHRISTINE LASKOWSKI what it means to go around and Water Cube prior to the Olympic crude form of printing, the positive actually requires a lot of privacy. British artist CHINA DAILY observe. I only see what I think I Games. Photographing 143 individ- and negative and little in-between. “Even my friends don’t know understand,” she said. “But I love the uals posing in the same position in They’re a little more like a comic what I’m doing,” Couchman said. “I presents cultures t look at her bio makes it otherness of all of these things, and front of these massive structures they strip. A bit explosive,” she said. just need a space. I don’t want to have sound like English artist when they get filtered down they have helped construct, the book is a Work from the series will be on to deal with other people’s points of in photographs Helen Couchman has form, well, these fantasies, really.” singular portrait of both the workers sale at the Affordable Arts Beijing view at this stage. I want people to see taken her art on a journey Couchman has chosen to visually and Olympic-fever Beijing. fair on April 24-25. it and know what they think, but I Aall round the world, the UK, Cyprus, articulate these “fantasies” through While her primary medium is However, it was a photograph that think in the creative process you have Armenia, the United States, and for the manipulation of scale. photography, she also works in rst drew her to China. “I had seen to almost stop and go on with it. It’s a the past four years, China. “With some projects there are other mediums. Her most recent pictures in the back of a glossy week- very vulnerable position to be in.” Couchman, however, would be tiny high rises or huge dragon work, a linocut series, Yellow Lin- end newspaper supplement…and one Still, like any artist who deserves more inclined to say that it is the statues. I feel that the dislocation or ing 12345, an exploration of clouds time they had a picture of the Harbin the title, she is comfortable with other way around, that it is her manipulation of scale make a playful and the typography of the sky as a Ice Festival and it burned a trail in my vicissitudes of her creative drive. art that has taken her all over the landscape. And that’s been quite a landscape. mind from about 2000. Aer that, I “I’ve got boxes of notes,” she said. world. And for the last four years, recurring theme.” She says the inspiration for the was obsessed with coming.” “ings I might come back to later it’s Beijing. In her series Untitled (Collecting series came when she arrived back in In 2006, Couchman was finally because it might just be not the right “I’ve lived in lots and lots of differ- and Dropping) Couchman presents Beijing in February. “It was a blue sky able to make her way to China via time. ent places, but being here it’s pushed this juxtaposition of cultures in a day, but when we landed there was a the Trans-Siberian Railway. “I think that ‘s why I don’t under- forward. I’ve taken it further.” sequence of photographs, where smog of white, and what really struck “I had never been to Asia before so stand why people harp so much The question Couchman has she poses nude behind a massive me was that on top of this was a band it was great to go by land,” she said. about origninality,” she said. been pursuing in her recent work Chinese fan from which the paper is of yellow, a sort of layer of tangerine.” “When I arrived in 2006, I decided “Art’s all a melting pot of a bunch deals with her how to identify our- gradually removed. She decided to use relief printing aer three days I wanted to live here of other things poeple have seen and selves with where we are, what is an Couchman’s latest book, Workers, for the series because of its rough- and a year later I moved.” heard. e discipline is that I keep ideal city and what makes Beiijing was a project that documented the and-ready graphic appeal. “Because But for someone whose living is pushing myself on my own terms Cloud Series, of Yellow Lining Beijing? men and women hired to construct of the nature of woodblock print- made from exhibiting her ideas in not a race agaist other, But a race 12345, by Helen Couchman. “While I’m observing the city and the Bird’s Nest Stadium and the ing, it really lends itself to a sort of public, Couchman’s creative method against myself. For China’s madame maestro, life is an enduring symphony By QIN ZHONGWEI NEXT UP later went to Moscow to learn to con- people from the Kejia ethnic minor- CHINA DAILY duct operas from Russian conductors. ity community, and it shows their ZHENG XIAOYING’S Since then, the baton has become tough spirit,” she said. “Written by Zheng Xiaoying is unstoppable. UPCOMING CONCERT a lifetime companion. She was not our Chinese composer, this Chinese Even at 80, the country’s rst female The Xiamen Philharmonic only the rst Chinese conductor to story conveys the feelings through the orchestra conductor still shows up Orchestra be invited to direct an opera in a style of Western classical music, and it regularly on the podium to direct Director: Zheng Xiaoying foreign country, but she also founded matches perfectly well. rst-class orchestras with her agile, Time: 7:30 pm April 11 the rst all-female orchestra, which “It is hugely welcomed no matter uid gestures. Venue: Music Hall, National gave a grand performance during the where we go. And in the last chapter She plans to wave the baton as long Center for the Performing Arts 1995 World Conference on Women of the chorus, the foreign audiences as she can hold it. Tickets: Log on to http: in Beijing. even chant with us,” she said. A former dean of the conducting //www.chncpa.org/n16/n1062/ Most remarkably, she did not give Although conducting is consid- department of the Central Conserva- n8576/3599172.html up conducting even in the hardest ered a very energy-consuming job tory of Music and principal conduc- Program: moment of her life. — Zheng said she only slept four tor for the National Opera House in • Fantasy Overture, composed In early 1990 Zheng was diagnosed hours a day in recent weeks — the Beijing, Zheng moved to Xiamen in by Xu Zhenmin with rectal cancer, but she did not end work “is not a big deal”, she said. Fujian province 11 years ago after • Shostakovich Violin Concerto her dream of music while battling the “As a conductor who was not she retired. No 1 disease for about eight years. Less than allowed to touch music during the At the local government’s invitation, • The Echoes of Hakka Earth two months aer a successful opera- “cultural revolution” (1966-76), if she helped establish the country’s rst ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY Buildings tion in 1998, she was back atop the you know how I went through that privately owned orchestra there – the Veteran conductor Zheng Xiaoying is to present a concert in early April. podium. And that time, she was on period, you will understand how Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra. the stage of the National Opera House I enjoy and cherish the moments On April 11, Zheng will bring the hound various enterprises for spon- panies to join the board. In Zheng’s orchestra, Pan and others have said, of the Republic of Estonia. when I can devote all myself to the orchestra to Beijing for a concert in sorship to maintain the orchestra’s eyes, the orchestra would need a stable is Xiamen’s new calling card. She recalled in a television inter- music,” she said. the National Center for Performing five-hour daily rehearsal regimen channel in which to seek capital. Many believe Zheng was born to be view that the concert was her most Zheng can barely nd a moment Arts. e musical feast will combine and a regular concert schedule. In recent years, it has become a a conductor, condent, articulate and impressive moment. to rest. But when she is free, she still Western masterpieces and ones com- She said she was dismayed by the first-class orchestra thanks to con- persistent. ose qualities are the nec- When the curtain rose and the tries to do something for her orches- posed by Chinese musicians. attitude and ignorance of classical sistent rehearsals and high-quality essary components of a professional spotlight was cast upon her she began tra. Since learning to blog in 2006, she Beijing audiences have missed her music by businesspeople in the area. concerts at home and abroad. conductor. Indeed, the madame mae- to direct the prelude of Carmen, the has actively posted stories and perfor- for a long time. Sometimes she had to place advertise- Zheng holds weekly concerts for stro said she never picked the occupa- foreign audience gave her a huge wel- mance information to promote the “It is not easy these years,” she said, ments in newspapers as a last resort to citizens in Xiamen and people from tion, but the occupation picked her. come and applause. She was so excited orchestra and classical music. recalling the effort it took to nurture a “beg for alms”, she said, using a Bud- nearby counties who may have never Born in Shanghai in 1929, she that she felt she had a rebirth. “I felt In September, the students that new musical ensemble. dhism term in self-mockery. listened to classical music. began to learn piano when she was 6 at that time that I am still myself,” Zheng once taught at the Central Her initial impression of Xiamen “During those low moments, I felt “ere are two functions of music,” years old. Music was only a hobby at she said. Conservatory held a concert in Bei- was a disappointing one. She fretted very lonely as few could understand she said. “One is for fun, or for enter- the time she enrolled at Peking Union Today, Zheng still sets a pioneering jing to commemorate her 60 years about the local residents’ limited me and the value of classical music,” tainment. But the other is to educate Medical College to study medicine. example. Zheng and the Xiamen Phil- of teaching. To her delight, many of understanding of classical music Zheng said. “But as a second thought people, say, give them knowledge and In 1948, she dropped out of college harmonic Orchestra toured Europe her former students are among the and the dearth of cultural events in I told myself that maybe that is the rea- culture. And the latter is what we against her parents’ will and joined a and the United States 2008 and 2009, country’s most famous conductors. the city. son that I should hold on and continue endeavor to do.” performing troupe of the liberation respectively. is year, they are plan- Some have led orchestras in Europe. “This orchestra was established to do it (promote classical music).” As a result, tens of thousands of army in Wuhan, Hubei province. ning a third tour, of Southeast Asia. “I really feel rewarded as I saw them from nothing, I can say that,” she Her persistence — and perspiration Xiamen citizens have become fans of During that time, she was chosen to Besides performing the regular mature,” she said. said. — nally paid off. the orchestra and have fallen in love be a chorus conductor. e troupe’s Western pieces, e Echoes of Hakka “I know that I will not stand on Among the obstacles that the new She advocated for the formation of with classical music. director had discovered that she could Earth Buildings is a symphony podium forever. I will really quit orchestra encountered, the toughest a board of directors for the orchestra, a e vice-mayor of the city, Pan Shi- play piano and read music. Zheng said she is proud to introduce once I feel my response has become was a shortage of funding because it feat she accomplished in December. jian, is one of them. On various occa- Three years later, she began to to the world. too slow to follow the music. But was not a State-owned orchestra. Zheng invited the vice-mayor of the sions he has stated how the orchestra receive systematic training at the “This symphony is an epic tale fortunately, it is not yet time,” she Zheng, as music director, had to city and some heads of big local com- and music impacted his life. The Central Conservatory of Music and about the life and struggles of the said, smiling.