About island6 Art Collective (Liu Dao 六岛)
INTRODUCTION
Liu Dao 六岛 (Liù dǎo) is a Shanghai-based art collective working across traditional Chinese art, performance and technology. Founded in 2006, the collective brings together artists, art directors, curators, writers, performers, technicians and fabricators under one name. It sounds complicated. It actually works.
A Liu Dao artwork might begin with a painting, a papercut, a calligraphy brushstroke or someone doing something strange in front of a camera. From there it can become animation, LED light, video, electronics or sculpture. Sometimes all of the above. The work often looks at China in both directions, back at its traditions and visual culture, and forward at the technology, cities and people reshaping it.
No single person is expected to do everything. That is the point.
The collective has always worked under one moniker. Everyone is credited for what they contribute, but the finished artwork belongs to Liu Dao. Over the years the group has ranged from 6 to 26 people, with guest artists, performers, curators and technicians joining individual projects when needed.
Since 2006, Liu Dao has exhibited internationally at museums, galleries and art fairs including China Art Museum, Rockbund Art Museum, MOCA Shanghai, Smithsonian Anacostia, Art Paris, KIAF, SCOPE New York and Miami, Art Dubai and Art Stage Singapore.
There is a much longer list, but that’s what the CV button is for.
[DOWNLOAD CV ↓]
PHILOSOPHY
Collaboration is not a side effect of Liu Dao. It is the whole idea.
We like the film analogy. Nobody thinks a movie was made by one person. There are actors, directors, cinematographers, writers, set designers, editors, choreographers and technicians. Liu Dao works in much the same way.
A painter may make one part of an artwork. A performer another. Someone else films it. Another artist draws or animates it frame by frame. Technicians and fabricators figure out how to make everything light up, move and behave itself.
Everyone does what they are good at. Nobody gets to pretend they did everything.
Each artwork has its own cast and credits. The result is collective rather than individual, and deliberately so.
PRODUCTION PROCESS
Everything begins in the Shanghai studio.
All Liu Dao artworks are made on the floor of island6 itself. The space is part gallery, part production studio, and occasionally a film set when the lights go down. Paintings, papercuts, performances, animation and final assembly all happen there.
That is also where the name Liu Dao 六岛 comes from. It literally means “island six.” Liu Dao is not just the name of the collective. In a way, it describes the work itself. It is the art made at island6.
Ideas are discussed, drawn, painted, filmed, tested, rejected, rebuilt and tested again. Sometimes the first idea works. Not very often.
Performances are filmed on our chroma-key stage. Paintings, calligraphy and papercuts are made by hand. Animation can involve hundreds or thousands of individually drawn or edited frames. Technicians and fabricators build the electronics, screens, LED systems and structures that eventually disappear inside the finished artwork.
Technology is important, but we don’t particularly want you thinking about it when you look at the finished piece. If you’re thinking about the power supply, something probably went wrong.
The process is deliberately slow. One artwork can pass through many hands and many stages before anyone is willing to call it finished.
Then somebody usually notices something and we start again.
PEOPLE
The island6 team consists of artists, art directors, curators and guest curators, supported by a technical team of technicians, fabricators, programmers, sound engineers and other specialists. Some have been working with island6 since the very beginning.
The collective regularly invites performers, dancers, actors, writers and guest curators to join individual artworks or exhibitions. Other specialists come onboard depending on what a particular piece needs. The team has ranged from 6 to 26 people since its inception in 2006.
When the collective isn’t making art, everyone helps run the exhibition space. Nobody gets to hide behind their job title :)
About island6 ARTS CENTER
island6 is the home of Liu Dao. It is where ideas are pushed, tested and rebuilt with enough skill, persistence and artistic stubbornness to drive everyone slightly mad before they finally become artworks.
Founded by artists in Shanghai in 2006, island6 provides the studio, gallery, materials, equipment, technicians and production infrastructure that allow the collective to work. Its headquarters remain at M50, Shanghai’s Moganshan Road art district.
The story started in a rehabilitated flour-mill warehouse on Moganshan Road and has since wandered through different spaces, cities and countries. Over the years island6 has opened spaces and worked with galleries in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Beijing, Phuket, Bangkok, Singapore, Paris and New York. Liu Dao’s artworks have travelled considerably further.
We stopped counting the exhibitions a long time ago. Fortunately, someone kept the CV.
Since 2016, island6 Hong Kong has exclusively handled the global sales of Liu Dao artworks, as well as the production of their animation and software elements, collectively referred to as “The Software.”
