It has been a while since the art season came to a close. I deliberately refrained from reviewing it right away, feeling that certain impressions need to be sorted through after the enthusiasm has settled, so that gains and losses can emerge more clearly.
Since the establishment of MAM & UP-ON Live Art Archive Center in early 2026, two projects have been planned: one is exhibitions focused on the organization and presentation of documentation and archives; the other is an international exchange platform integrating creation, lectures, and workshops. The first project, GOUCHEN, has successfully opened two editions. The MAM & UP-ON International Live Art Season, originally planned to launch next year, was brought forward by a year due to an unexpected opportunity. Although there were some twists and turns at the beginning, fortunately many kindred spirits joined hands, and in the end everything came together and launched smoothly.
The MAM & UP-ON Art Season infused vibrant and pure live art energy into Shanghai, an inclusive and diverse city. Creators expressed the unique charm of live art with sincerity and professionalism, while the active participation and empathetic interaction of audiences filled the art season’s events with warmth and strength.
To begin with, I must thank the FICFF Fashion and Sustainable Future Foundation for its financial sponsorship of the art season. I also want to thank the volunteer team who carried out the concrete work, as well as the many local peers in Shanghai for their enthusiastic support and collaboration.
Man proposes, Heaven disposes. Now that things have begun, we must forge ahead. We hope that the MAM & UP-ON Art Season can meet everyone every year, continuing to convey the vitality of live art and to do our part in fostering a healthier ecosystem for live art.
-Zhou Bin
During the art season, besides on-site creations by artists, a series of thematic lectures and workshops will also be held to provide public educational resources for the community, which constitutes an important effort in fostering a sound ecosystem.
Absence Is (Y)our House
This is an experiential workshop themed around “absence,” interpreting the echoes of life through behavioral practices and poetic exploration.
Artist Instructor：Marcel Sparmann(Germany）
Opening Forum & FICFF Sustainable Development Forum·Shanghai
Modern Art Museum 4F，9/25 10:30-12:30
Live art takes the body as its medium and time and space as its carrier, realising its expression within an irreproducible presence. As algorithms generate images, as trends continuously absorb avant‑garde practices, and as sustainability emerges as a global issue, how can live art respond to this accelerated era? Bringing together institutional practitioners, artists, educators, designers and scholars, this forum hosts dialogues revolving around four major themes: site‑specific pedagogy, opportunities and crises for live art in the age of AI, pathways to the sustainable development of live art, and the collision, appropriation and mutual construction between live art and fashion.
All Artists Work Sharing Day
Modern Art Museum 4F，9/27 11:00-13:00
The Art Sharing Marathon offers artists an opportunity to gain a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of one another’s practices, while allowing the audience to engage in close discussions and exchanges with them.
Modern Art Museum
Opening: 14:00 Performance: 14:30-19:30
At 2 p.m. on September 25, the opening ceremony of the 2026 First FICFF | MAM & UP-ON International Live Art Season was held at the Modern Art Museum (MAM). The speakers at the opening ceremony included: Zhang Xi, representative ofthe Modern Art Museum; Zhou Bin, representative of the art season; and artists’ representatives Marcel Sparmann and Li Yaoyao.
Eight artists from home and abroad have been invited to this art season, with origins spanning Europe, America and Asia. Over two consecutive days, the artists devoted themselves to creating eight remarkable works bearing distinct personal styles, fully embodying the unique allure of live art.
Performance:14:30-19:30
Yanxin Wang (CHINA,Chengdu)
Title: Nowhere to Arrive
Duration: 50 minutes
Memories, history, lives, and traumas once intertwined along the banks of Shanghai’s Huangpu River. Through tracks, waterways, archives, and the body, the work unfolds as an exploration of repetition, searching, and departure, questioning where time has gone and what history leaves behind. “Nowhere to Arrive” describes both the body’s repeated movement and obstruction between path and destination, and a deeper spiritual quest: when a space is redefined, can what once happened there still be reached?
Tony Orrico (USA)
Title: Penwald: 4: unison symmetry standing：center circle | 2010-
Performance, graphite on paper
96 x 240 inches
Duration: 4 Hours
Orrico stands stationary facing a wall for four hours, performing a bilateral drawing through a personal movement practice responsive to environmental cues and bodily sensation.The resulting installation presents a spectral record of effort, with integrated experience centralized and more fragmented traces dispersing toward the edges.
Artist supported by the University of Iowa’s Office of the Vice President for Research and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Jason Lim （Singapore）& John Court （UK）
Title: Untitled × 2
Duration: 3 hours
Untitled × 2 is a three-hour simultaneous performance by John Court and Jason Lim, bringing together two independent artistic practices within a shared space and duration. Neither artist had given his individual performance a title, nor was there any prior discussion or planning about what each would do. We entered the space with our own approaches, allowing the performance to unfold through our actions, presence and the circumstances of the moment.
Using ceramic bells made in Shanghai and Jingdezhen, I explored the relationship between sound, silence and the physical presence of objects. Through repeated actions, the bells produced intermittent resonances that travelled through the surrounding space before gradually dissolving into silence.
Meanwhile, John engaged in a sustained process of walking along chalk circles and making inscriptions on his head. His repetitive movements and markings gradually accumulated, creating a visual record of time and physical endurance.
Although our actions remained independent, we were constantly aware of each other’s presence. Over the three hours, an exchange of energy developed between us. We drew upon each other’s concentration, movements and rhythms, sometimes responding consciously, at other times through an intuitive awareness of the other. This unspoken exchange helped sustain the duration of the performance, allowing our individual actions to influence one another without the need for direct interaction.
Unexpected visual correspondences also emerged. The circular and dotted patterns on my ceramic bells echoed the chalk circles of John’s performance, establishing a relationship that neither of us had deliberately planned.
For me, the performance was not simply about two artists working independently in the same space, but about how individual energies could coexist, intersect and influence one another. The absence of planning created a space for trust, attentiveness and openness to the unknown. Neither artist needed to direct or control the other, yet each became part of the conditions shaping the other’s experience.
Untitled × 2 reflects the possibility of a dialogue without words or predetermined gestures. What emerged was neither a single unified performance nor two entirely separate works, but a shared experience shaped by time, physical endurance, mutual awareness and the energy exchanged between two bodies.
John Court is supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Finnish Cultural Foundation Lapland.
Performance:14:00-18:20
Marcel Sparmann (Germany)
Title: Absence Is (Y)our House
Duration: 40 minutes
Absence is a place, a house, the world from which we come. And it is here that they dwell—the absent fathers, the friends who have left, the dead, and those held in our thoughts—and have done so for generations. It is a place to which we, too, will one day return. Yet until then, it is their echoes and a silence heavy with traces that accumulate within us like sepia-toned monuments. Thus, “Absence Is (Y)our House” is conceived as a sensory, performative quest to trace the movements of echoes—both our own and those surrounding us—and the stories they hold. It unfolds between embodiment and activation, between the heard and the spoken, between movement and stillness.
Natascha Moschini （Switzerland）
Title: Soft Hours
Duration: 25 minutes
Soft Hours is a performance experiment by Natascha Moschini that unfolds through the encounter between the figure of a rabbit and its audience. It appears in different facets: a furry mascot who playfully offers cake, a funny bunny having a lovely day, and a statue brought to life that tries to remove its own pedestal. Each facet approaches audience members seeking contact, such as glances, handshakes and kisses on the cheek, gestures that hover between entertainment and closeness.
The rabbit inhabits a dreamlike scene, turning intimacy into an experiment.
Artist supported by Pro Helvetia Shanghai.
Li Yaoyao (CHINA，Chengdu)
Title: How should I put it…… Hmm, yes
Performers: Yuri, ( ), Desheng, Zhixuan, Caoyuan, Wendi
Cellist: Wang Tian
Child performers: Little Bee, Milk Tea, Pipi
Duration: 20 minutes
The body slowly bends, bears weight, and rises upright in the sound of the wind. Sand flows along the spine.
Children run in, chasing and playing with one another, kicking camel-shaped blocks of ice, one after another.
The camels move back and forth beneath their feet, their forms continually shifting with time and temperature, blurring at moments, then revealing new ridgelines of the spine.
The sand falls to the ground. Nothing remains in its original form.
Wang Ximan (CHINA，Shenyang)
Title: Part 1
Materials：Oil drums, old tarpaulins from grain silos, conveyor belts, fire extinguishing sand, alcohol swabs, poles, Zippo lighters, military supplies, laboratory glass beads, sluices, and binding straps.
Durarion: 26 minutes
Part1 patron: Zoe Chang
This art season serves not only as an international professional exchange platform but also creates opportunities for artists from diverse regions to engage in thorough dialogue. Artistic creation is inseparable from life. It is vital to understand diverse perspectives and broaden one’s horizons through mutual exchange.
Project Producer: Damien
Project Director: Zhou Bin
Coordination & Execution: Ni Jia, Lv Zi
Visual Design: Ding Ling
Working Group Members: Cao Xiuyuan, Deng Mingzhu, Guo Youheng, Huang Jiajun, Lin Yanjie, Peng Weiwen, Ren Baiyu, Soma, Wang Haiyi, Wang Shutian, Zeng Xiaodong
Host Institution: Modern Art Museum
Curatorial Organization: MAM & UP-ON Live Art Archive Center
Title Sponsor: Fashion in a Conscious Future Foundation
Supporting Organization: Finnish Cultural Foundation, Finnish Cultural Foundation Lapland,Pro Helvetia Shanghai, the Swiss Arts Council , University of Iowa
MAM & UP-ON国际现场艺术季四点原则：
THE FOUR POINTS OF THE UP-ON INTERNATIONAL LIVE ART SEASON
● 非营利 UNCOMMERCIALLY
艺术节无营利目的，工作团队除在艺术活动期间有与艺术家同等的补贴外，其余时间为无薪酬工作。
The Season is organized without profit-making purposes, and the staff works without pay, except during artistic activities when they receive subsidies, just like the artists.
● 国际化 INTERNATIONALIZATION
艺术季创办伊始就定位于国际化的专业交流平台。广泛邀请世界各地的艺术家参与，他们中既有从上世纪七十年代就从事现场艺术创作的前辈，也有充满冒险精神的新锐。
The Season has been set up as an international platform for professional exchanges since the beginning. Artists worldwide are invited to participate in the festival, including those engaged in live art creation since the 1970s and newcomers full of an adventurous spirit.
● 学术性 ACADEMIC NATURE
艺术季努力邀请到国内外创作经验丰富的优秀艺术家参与，并促成近距离的专业性的学术交流和分享，对国际范围内现场艺术最前沿的课题展开对话和探讨。
The Season strives to invite the participation of outstanding artists with rich creative experience at home and abroad, facilitates close and professional academic exchanges and sharing, and initiates dialogues and discussions on the most cutting-edge topics of live art on an international scale.
● 公共性 PUBLICITY
艺术季期间，艺术家们除创作作品外，还会在一些艺术机构、社区和大学举办讲座、工作坊等多种形式的活动，促进和提升公众对现场艺术的认知。
During the Season artists will create works and hold lectures, workshops, and other activities in some art organizations, communities, and universities to promote and enhance public awareness of live art.
Curatorial Organization
The MAM & UP-ON Live Art Documentation Center was jointly established in Shanghai in 2026 by Modern Art Museum Shanghai and the UP-ON Performance Art Archive. It is a professional art platform dedicated to mapping the ecology of live art, archival documentation, academic research, and creative exchange.
Centered on archive-building and curatorial practice, the Center systematically organizes and activates historical materials on live art, establishes coherent contexts for viewing and research, and addresses gaps in the field. Through exhibitions and public programs, it also builds an international network for dialogue and exchange in live art.
Organizer
Formerly a coal bunker located at the old Shanghai Coal Transport Wharf, Modern Art Museum Shanghai (MAM) has been transformed into an art “warehouse” while preserving the original architecture and landscape.
MAM focuses on “diversity,” “openness,” “exchange,” and “learning.” It maintains an open international perspective and integrates cross-disciplinary approaches, introducing classic art from both the East and the West, showcasing modern design and aesthetics, and exploring the future of art inspired by new technologies and diverse media. The museum continues to pay close attention to contemporary art with an emphasis on Asia, using innovative curatorial concepts and techniques to transform the museum into a platform for public art and cultural experiences. Visitors can gain inspiration, acquire new knowledge, and enrich their aesthetic lives.
Our philosophy: “Art’s Happening.” MAM is committed to maintaining high artistic standards, promoting public education, balancing international and local elements, and fostering the production of art and culture. Through the integration of art, music, performance, and cuisine, MAM offers a continuous, year-round site of artistic events for audiences from diverse backgrounds..
Title Sponsor
Fashion in a Conscious Future Foundation (FICFF) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) and an innovation and cultural-impact institution guided by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is committed to advancing sustainable development through fashion, culture, education, and global collaboration.
FICFF is committed to transforming fashion and culture into positive forces for global sustainable development. Through innovative practices across fashion, lifestyle, environmental protection, education, and international cooperation, the Foundation promotes the communication and implementation of sustainability principles and contributes to a greener, fairer, and more inclusive future.
The sustainable development initiative submitted by FICFF has been officially published on the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) Partnerships for SDGs Platform under project No. #SDGAction60806.
Supporting Organization
Pro Helvetia Shanghai, the Swiss Arts Council
The University of lowa
Finnish Cultural Foundation Lapland
Finnish Cultural Foundation
