BASEL SOCIAL CLUB

This year’s Basel Social Club (BSC) hosts a week-long open-air event on the farmland of Basel, Switzerland, from June 9^th to 16^th, spanning from the city’s borders to the edge of the forest, across fields, barns, and trees.

Chen Qiulin’s site-specific installation ‘吃豆腐CHI DOU FU (Eating Tofu)(2024)’, delves into themes of ecology and humanity, as well as equality, sustainability, and circularity, resonating with this year’s BSC ecological focus. The piece is sculpted onsite amidst the landscapes, agriculture, and farm animals. It is not only an ecological art that reflects on the environment and humanity, but also a land art that responds to materials and landscapes. Moreover, all these aspects can also be incorporated into newer discussions on identity and cultural fluidity, making it a topic worth exploring deeply.

Since 2003, tofu has been a creative medium of artistic expression for Chen Qiulin. Tofu, as a widely recognised symbol of Eastern culture around the world, allows the artist to reflect on her own culture and identity. In addressing evolutionary themes, she embraces more complex and diverse challenges, forming the critical thinking behind her new work with different materials.

In response to this year’s ecological focus of BSC and the nature of the specific site, Chen Qiulin collaborated with local tofu producer TUYU, using soybeans sourced from farms within 30 kilometres of the site. The work ‘吃豆腐CHI DOU FU (Eating Tofu)(2024)’ is sculpted on-site at the farm and will naturally decompose during the art week, allowing the soybeans from this land to eventually return to it. Additionally, the artist aims to explore the relationship between usefulness and uselessness, as well as the connection between humans and nature in today’s globalised world.

This is the best project I’ve seen at this year’s Basel Social Club. It excellently responds to the ecological focus of this year’s art week! said curator Li Zhenhua.

On the opening day of the Basel Social Club, artist Chen Qiulin and TUYU Tofu founder Jinhee Park created a special tofu snacks on-site. The snacks combined organic tofu with traditional Chinese flavours, blending tradition and modernity. Visitors were free to join in and enjoy an exquisite experience from within their bodies at the farm, savouring moments of interaction with the artist.