A friend of ours is studying art at the Plymouth College of Art. Recently she has been involved in making a film by Erika Tan, “Sensing Obscurity”, which was filmed at the National Trust’s Saltram House near Plymouth. This project is part of the SINOPTICON exhibition, which is in turn part of the “Trust New Art” Programme. The official opening took place yesterday, also at Saltram House. We were invited there to celebrate this event.
Saltram House
The title of the exhibition “Sinopticon” is a compound construction of two words‘ Sino’ meaning China and ‘ optics’, meaning ways of seeing.
Taking chinoiserie as a starting point this exhibition explores the relationship of Western Europe with China both historically and through contemporary eyes.‘Chinoiserie’, a French term meaning ‘Chinese-esque’, derived from the Seventeenth Century as an entirely European style that was influenced wholly from China and the East. The China that was being emulated was in fact fictitious and very few real images of life in China had reached the west. Instead a Utopian land was described and repeated through the use of decorative motifs and styles. The influence and desire for China, it’s trade and culture, ramified in to the 19th century, opium wars, trade and colonialism.
More about the historical background can be found on the Sinopticon website.
Read more on SINOPTICON exhibition in Plymouth…
