“Ziyang & Charmian”
2019年至2021年间，司马源在一家艺术留学机构兼职的同时，以两名学生——Ziyang（男，19岁）和Charmian（女，17岁）的观念作为材料进行创作。她用“辅导摄影作品集”的方式完成了一种形塑艺术创作趣味和品位的实验行为，并接受任何可能的结果以及探讨从任何立场提出的问题。
司马源利用每周给学生上课的机会，以各种方式形塑学生的审美观和创作思维，并将他们被“塑造前”和“塑造后”的结果以展览的形式呈现出来。每一件作品都是在漫长的教学过程中产生的交流、对话 、争论和妥协的结果。司马源探讨了她和学生们在这一过程中产生的关系。作为老师，她形塑了学生们的创作观念，但是他们被形塑的结果以及他们对此结果的认可与否才是问题的实质——在这个意义上，无论老师还是学生都只是处于艺术审美权力生态链上的不同位置而已。更高层面的艺术趣味和品位的区隔，以及治理与被治理关系，通过这样一种实验性的行动被提出来。
塑造者与被塑造者的想法如何在同一件作品中显现出来？两者之间最终达到的结果，是一个什么样比例的中间值？司马源通过本展览呈现了上述议题。
“Ziyang & Charmian”
From 2019 to 2021, while working part-time in an overseas affairs service agency, Sima Yuan used the cognition of the two students，Ziyang (male, 19- year-old) and Charmian (female, 17-year-old)，as material to create. She has completed an experimental act of shaping their artistic taste by means of “counseling photography portfolio”. And she accepts any possible results, as well as discusses questions raised from any standpoint.
Every week when Sima Yuan teaches her students, she reshapes the aesthetic standard and thinking mode of them in various ways and presents their “before and after” works in the exhibition. Each work is the result of communication, dialogue, controversy and compromise during the long teaching process. Sima Yuan discussed the relationship between her and the two students during this process. As a teacher, she shaped the ideas of the students, but the results of the shaping and their recognition of the results are the essences of the issue. In this sense, both teacher and students are just in different positions in the ecological chain of artistic aesthetic power. The distinction between artistic taste at a higher level, as well as the governing-being governed relationship, are proposed through such an experimental action.
How do the ideas of the shaper and the one who’s shaped appear in the same work? What is the intermediate value of the result between the two? Sima Yuan presents the issues above through this project.
“Ziyang & Charmian”，单频道录像，时长5’00”, 尺寸可变, 2021
“Ziyang & Charmian”, single-channel video, 5’00’’, dimensions variable, 2021
“Ziyang & Charmian”，图像装置，尺寸可变，2021
“Ziyang & Charmian”, image installation, dimensions variable, 2021
(展览现场)
(Exhibition View)
“Glory of Kings”, photography installation, G-print on linen, 300x500cm, 2021
“王者荣耀”，摄影装置，布上艺术微喷，300x500cm, 2021
“实心”系列，摄影，艺术微喷，90x60cm, 2020
“Solid” series, photography, G-print on paper, 90x60cm, 2020
“生命力”系列（局部），摄影，艺术微喷，尺寸可变，2019
“Vitality” series（part）, photography, G-print. on paper, dimensions variable, 2019
司马源给学生上课的记录表，2020
Students’ class record sheet, 2020
两位学生收到的来自Parsons和 Pratt Institute的Offer和奖学金
Offers and scholarships received by the two students from Parsons (2021) and Pratt Institute (2020)