Movana Chen

Updated on Jan 28, 2024

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Knitting in plain sight the art of movana chen

Movana Chen (陳麗雲) is a Hong Kong–based female artist and curator. She is renowned for her unique approach of using shredded magazine papers to knit clothes. She uses paper-shredder to transform print media into a textile-like material and knits the magazine shreds together to form various clothing, containers and structures. Her artworks are multidisciplinary fusion of media transformation, fashion, performance, and sculpture, which has been presented in diverse exhibitions and festivals events in Hong Kong, Beijing, Seoul, London and Paris.

Lot 3 art diary issue 1 by movana chen commentator jonathan thomson

Early Life and education

Movana Chen KNITerature Solo Exhibition of Movana Chen Macaron Magazine

Movana was born in 1975 in Chaozhou, China, she went to Shenzhen with her family in mid-1980s and then moved to Hong Kong. In the run-up to the handover in 1997, they moved to Singapore, where she started her interest in art and dreamed of becoming a fashion designer. However, her father wanted her to take over his business. She persuaded him to allow her to go to the London College of Fashion in London. She studied fashion design there for a year and return to Hong Kong and studied accountancy. In fact, she wanted to continue her study in fashion design, yet she found no one values either the ideas or process but only the final products. So, she would rather be an accountant. One day, she passed by an art centre and the thought of learning painting came to her mind.

In 2005, she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Hong Kong. In 2007, she finished her Exhibition Studies and Art Curatorship in the Hong Kong Art School.

Career

Movana Chen Studio Visit Movana Chen Random Art Zine

She worked as an accountant from 1997 to 2004. After quitting accountant, she worked as the curator of Hong Kong's YY9 gallery and later becomes an individual curator till now.

Artworks, style and technique

Movana Chen Wearable Art and Sculpture with Movana Chen Westphal College of

Famous for her knitting artwork, Movana uses shredded magazine papers as the material and weaves them into art pieces using conventional knitting needle. Her signature art work is called "Body Container", which is a magazine paper weaved wearable artwork.

The idea of the art work comes from attempting to examine the relationship between clothes and the media and reflecting our use of disposable commodities. Moreover, she is weaving these kind of art work with magazines of different languages, which she believes that it is a way to appreciate different cultures, by turning books and literature in an artistic form.

Unlike conventional and traditional "art" which are created through brush strokes and paint on canvas, Movana adopts strings of paper as her paint and brush to create art pieces.Her exhibition of KNITERATURE held in 2013, took two-years in the making and 400 books. The idea within her art is obvious, to show the indifference and alienation among people, and to reduce the distance between individuals through this series of artworks. Her exhibition of KNITERATURE held in 2013, took two-years in the making and 400 books.

Not only are her artworks pleasing to the eyes, but they also convey deeper social and moral meanings. The idea within her art, in particular, the Body Container Series, is obvious, to show the indifference and alienation among people, and by creating this series, to eventually reduce the distance among individuals and encourage interactions among us all in the society. In that sense her influence as an artist is as far-reaching as the equally important influence she has as an educator. Knitting Conversations is one of the artwork in the exhibition, which is a 15-meter collaboration piece from books or magazines by 150 participants from the ages of five to ninety from all across the globe and have them shredded before sending them back for these people to knit. She believes shredding is a process of transformation, and knitting is a process of creating, and communicating. Knitting is also a way of and exploration of the world and ourselves.

A "body container" knitted from shredded Tin Tin comic books (French version) is estimated to be valued around 150,000 to 200,000 Hong Kong Dollars by Christie's.

Solo Exhibition

In 2005, White Tube, Hong Kong Art Centre, Movana Chen held her first solo exhibition, Play with Artbooks The exhibition showed an exploration of rationality & sensibility between herself and the art book. Magazines were made into stripes and a wearable dress, and the dress was treated as a communication tool, and transform into installation, photography, painting and sculpture.

In 2006, Wear Me Out, Fringe Club Hong Kong

In 2007, two exhibitions continuing her previous themes were held, Play with Artbooks-II, Fringe Club Hong Kong, and Wear Me Out-II, The 10th Seoul Fringe Festival, HUT Gallery Seoul Korea in which magazines in Hong and Korea were used to create the artworks. They include camisole, pants, bikinis, etc. The audience can try to wear the artwork in the street.

In 2008, her exhibition was held in two places. Two-way Communication, Beijing, Pekin Fine Arts Beijing, China and Two-way Communication, IFC mall Hong Kong. Movana Chen used magazines as material and knitted thousand of shred magazines to create ‘body container’ sculpture and room-size installations, all aim at examining the relationship between clothes and the media, and our consumption of disposable commodities.

In 2009, Travelling into my Bookshelf, Shin Hwa Gallery, Hong Kong. Movana Chen used books from her friends as knitting material. It is different from her previous project which used easily disposable magazine. The project emphasizes books that contain memories of owners and the communication with her friends' memories during the knitting process.

In 2011, Travelling into your bookshelf – Paris, Chinart LaGalerie, Paris. Movana Chen started the project "Travelling into your bookshelf" by using the collections in her bookshelf which include magazines and art books (139 books). She tried to study the relationship between herself and each book. People were invited to donate one book from their bookshelf. All these materials are from her friends' bookshelves around the world in different languages. She read the books and tried to understand what memories or story her friend wanted to share with her, to learn cultures and also establish a new communication way. Starting from 2009, She traveled to London, Milan, Korea, Michigan, Philadelphia, Sicily, Paris, Melbourne, Hannover, Turkey to gather the materials.

In 2011, Body Containers come to life, K11 art mall, Hong Kong. Movana Chen explored ways to experiment and perform with the "Body Container", expressing the concept of how the human form embodies ideas about our society, through "wearing" one’s identity.

In 2013, KNITerature, ArtisTree, Hong Kong. Chen’s exhibition includes works of art from knitted paper. Raw materials such as papers, magazines, books and newspapers were used to create her artworks. The centrepiece of the exhibition, Knitted Conversations, is a two-year collaborative project that features knitted patchwork from more than 150 participants of different countries and ages.

Award

2013: Selected one of the 30 Finalists for the 2012–13 Sovereign Asian Art Prize

2012: Selected one of the 30 Finalists for the 2011 Sovereign Asian Art Prize

2009: New York Festivals 2009 Film & Video Awards, Finalist Certificate "Close to Culture: Art Faces – movana chen i-CABLE News Ltd., Hong Kong

2008:"40 under 40" creative talents Award, perspective magazine, Hong Kong

Publications

KNITerature: The art of Movana Chen (September 2013), ISBN 978-988-1858498
Two-Way Communication: The Art of Movana Chen (April 2008), ISBN 978-988-17377-3-1

References

Movana Chen Wikipedia

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