Mocube is honored to present Earth Pearls by Zheng Jiang opening on August 7, 2021. This exhibition will include the second phase of Zheng’s creation in his hometown, Jinyun Mountain, Zhejiang Province, after his solo exhibition at Mocube, Feitsui, in 2019. Curated by Wang Che, the exhibition will be a showcase of Zheng’s new works crossing mediums of sculpture, video, and painting.

Zheng commenced the project Earth Pearls when he returned to his hometown in October 2020, which was the fifth consecutive year of art-making based in his hometown. Zheng explained that the accidental injury of his father furthered his understanding of him and extended to the rethinking of his connection with the land, the natural and regional issues that have become a part of his identity.

In September 2018, Zheng Jiang invited me to take walk in his hometown of Wuyun Town, Jinyun County, Zhejiang Province. It was summer in September. The mountains were covered by lush vegetation. The cave area that had been forbidden to enter was almost surrounded by roadless wilderness. Zheng looked for some small footpaths to take me into the caves, to show me the works he made. Many caves could no longer be entered because of collapse, lagoon, or vegetation barriers. The natural restoring force gradually eliminated these paths, forming each green water pool topped by algae, mapping the sky and the broken lines of the caves. In the sultry summer, we could not resist these clear ponds. We pushed aside the duckweeds and went into the water. The water should have escaped from the pores of the tuff. They were full of carbon, calcium, and phosphorus that gave birth to the earliest life and formed the skeletons that support us. I prompted a primitive intuition. The rock space we were in was the cradle of life. The ancient rocks represented a long geological period, telling about our origin in a secret language. Our chat in the water and his creations scattered among the mountains and caves also made me understand that Zheng’s return to his hometown was not simply nostalgia. It encompassed wilderness, body, situation, individual, projection, traceability, continuation, and a series of discourses.

These words not only refer to the works. They represent a string of processes Zheng undertakes, such as intervention, feeling, experience, thinking, imagination, action, etc. In these processes, what is triggered is our deep thinking on issues of personal and home, art and society, cities and wilderness, civilization and ecology, art and nature.

Text by Wang Che