Community Art Project with Mansheng Wang

Take part in a unique intergenerational workshop in which artist Mansheng Wang, who lives in the Hudson River Valley, and whose masterful pen and ink drawings are on view in Rivers Flow / Artists Connect, demonstrates the art of Chinese calligraphy, empowering participants to take part in the co-creation of a community artwork linking the histories of the Silk Road and the Hudson River.

The Silk Road, a network of trade routes across the Eurasian continent linking the Mediterranean world and East Asia, represents an earlier era of globalization and cultural exchange involving the flow of peoples, ideas, and goods. Silk, spices, tea, works of art, and religious objects traveled along it. The European desire for Asian silk and spices was an important driver of the European Age of Exploration, and in his quest to find a short route to Asia, the English explorer Henry Hudson sailed and mapped the river that now bears his name.

Wang will narrate these interlinked stories while demonstrating the art and technique of Chinese calligraphy by inscribing the names of spices traded along the Silk Road. Workshop participants will then be invited to join Wang in trying their hand at Chinese calligraphy by writing spice names on a large canvas, and also be encouraged to write spice names they know in other languages. The process and resulting artwork will embody the multi-layered, colorful nature of cultural exchange.

This project is made possible with funds from a NYSCA regrant program administered by ArtsWestchester.