Chang Dai-chien's sculpture, created by Brazilian Artist Fabiano Spike, and installed in 2023, in the ruins of the 8 Virtues Garden, in Taiaçupeba.
The visit to Chang Dai-chien's 8 Virtues Garden in Brazil, flooded by the Jundiaí River Dam in Mogi das Cruzes is amazing. In this place, Dai-chien cultivated his painting, poetry and calligraphy with cooking, gardening and teachings for almost 20 years.
The place carries magic, specially after Brazilian Artist Fabiano Spike has created and installed a 4 meters sculpture made of concrete to homage Chang Dai-chien in the ruins of the Eight Virtues Garden.
Between January 10-13, we had the pleasure to organize a series of lectures with Brazilian and Chinese-American artists and researchers, which gathered at the Center for Research and Education of SESC São Paulo, to reflect about Dai-chien's life and work, the importance and invisibility of his passage in Brazil, and the dreams of the regeneration of the 8 Virtues Garden.
Photo by Wang Zhiyi
In the opening day, director Weimin Zhang spoke about her 12 years journey following Dai-chien's path for her documentary "Of Color and Ink", launched in 2023, winner of the Best International Feature Documentary Film Award (Bandeira Paulista Trophy) at the 47th São Paulo International Film Festival, and the 20th Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival, in China. A beautiful and moving regard to the painter's artistic, spiritual and planetary journey.
In the second day, the round-table about Chang Dai-chien in Brazil gathered journalist Guilherme Gorgulho, who is writing a biography about the painter, and researcher and curator Marco Antônio Baena, who wrote the first Thesis about the artist in Brazilian Academic field: "Jardim das 8 Virtudes: Chang Dai-chien e a pintura chinesa de paisagem".
Gorgulho has been working for many years, rescuing the obliterated memory of Chang in Brazil. Baena presented a very rich analysis of Dai-chien's works in different moments of his path.
In the third day, the reflection departed from the connections between arts, territory and ecology, bringing the perspectives of contemporary artists such as Fabiano Spike, Eduardo Colombo and Victor Kinjo, who are gathering artistic research and creation, ecoperformative practice and cultural production to cultivate new works inspired in Chang Dai-chien's work and in the dreams of the garden regeneration.
In the last day, the group of 40 people of the audience went to Taiaçupeba on Saturday morning to see the 8 Virtues Garden ruins and the sculpture of Chang Dai-chien, built by Fabiano Spike in homage to the Chinese painter in the margins of the Jundiaí River Dam.
The group also had the chance to visit Spike's atelier and to taste the local food from Taiaçupeba!
To know more about the event, click here.
If you are interested in visiting the sculpture, please write to jardimdas8virtudes@gmail.com for more information.
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