WHW Akademija

Photo: Katia Zhdanova

Haonan He was born in 1994 in the Yunnan region of China. He is an extra-disciplinary and multi-media artist and researcher. He graduated from the Master ArTeC (Arts, Technologies, Digitization et Creation) at EUR ArTec Paris in 2022, and Post-diploma Art at École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon in 2023.

He focuses on the colonial roots of the issues surrounding poppy-derived drugs and the complex dilemmas they present today. He reveals a postcolonial phenomenon of the Anthropocene, a biochemical transition from plants to the pharmaceutical industry to the human body, illustrating the artificial hyper-dependence of modern society on the pharmaceutical industry and specific plants.

His work has been exhibited at the Yunnan Art Museum in China (2016), the Chengdu Biennale (2021), Les laboratoires d’Aubervilliers in Paris (2023), The Youmein Festival in Tangier（2023), the MAC Lyon（2023). He participated in the intercultural program Culture d'avenir 2022-2023, organized by Centre Pompidou in Paris, CCCB in Barcelona, and HKW in Berlin. He was resident in In Situ Residency Program 2023-2024, co-constructed by the Cité internationale des arts and the Fondation Daniel et Nina Carasso.

Artist's website and Instagram.

1. Speculative Mandala: The state of the art of poppy history, 2023; 2. Mandala-Cartography, How poppies arrived in Yunnan-Golden Triangle, 2022; 3. Investigating-Creating: Investigating the Historical Materiality of Poppy Colonization. 19th Century Asian Opium, Microcamera photos, 2023; 4. Investigating-Creating: Investigating the Historical Materiality of Poppy Colonization. 19th century white poppy seeds, Microcamera photos, 2023; 5. Poppy,Laboratory and Investigator's gesture, 3D scan sculpture, 2023

Artist statement

Through installation, video, 3D, and painting, Haonan He develops an extra-disciplinary and multimedia practice nourished by Investigation-creation, a subjective cartographic approach to the mandala's cosmology. His research retraces the colonial history of the global spread of opium poppy from the 11th century to the present day, shedding light on the colonial roots of the issues surrounding poppy-derived drugs and the complex dilemmas they present today. For the artist, colonial subjugation, technological acceleration in the drug industry, and ecological shamanism are inextricably intertwined.

Examining the long history, he criticizes the claim of science - as conceived in 17th-century Europe - to represent the world, and detects its reminiscences in the cartographic technology of the digital age. The result is a reduction and unification of worldviews and cosmologies. As a counterpoint, he develops the conditions for a multisensory dialogue with poppies and their by-products, based on their materiality, botany, pharmacology, archives and visual and sound experiments.

No items found.

fellows

fellows