Urban Fragments is poetry spread among more than 20 million inhabitants with memories of dry winters and humid summers mixed with the essence of stinky tofu. Words that ride down the street in their orange shared bike, trying not to bump into the Mercedes blocking the hutong or the old man with the recyclable waste coming down the wrong side of the street. Stanzas that come alive in a Didi driver’s spit or in the sounds of the fires laid at some of the intersections of the city while a feeling of displacement and insignificance gets conjured by the sight of mega buildings drowning in fog.

 

A selection of poetry
done by Sara F. Costa from
artists drown in Beijing
culture gets transformed into
a piece of sounds by
Julian 朱利安
& visuals by Nina Dillenz
to be displayed at
AOTU Space on
December 14th.

 

 

Before moving back to his home country, China, Julian spent his teenage years in Melbourne and received his college education in Paris. In 2015, Julian started playing music as a part-time DJ in Lantern, one of the pioneering techno club in Beijing. A year later, he decided to devote himself into his music career, so he quitted his daytime office job in Beijing and began the study on music production in Dub Spot Electronic Music School in New York. He also taught himself film scoring during that time.

Julian’s earlier inter-cultural background and his residency in the artistic Williamsburg neighborhood has granted his work with great complexity. He also drew great amount of inspirations from his own life stories, which makes some of his music very cinematic, even with a story-telling style. Most of his works are experimental, yet Julian would add a bit witty and humorous element in them. His music could not be defined as a certain genre. Sampling, electro, techno, and orchestral has all became ingredients in his personal, visionary and original musical delicacy.

In 2018, Julian came back to Beijing and launched his career as a freelance music producer. He has been collaborating with poets, artists and fashion designers. Julian also provided ambient music and sound system solutions for business properties. He will never cease the exploration in the realm of music and sound.

 

 

Nina Dillenz graduated with a Master of Arts from the University of Vienna in Theatre and Film Studies. Recent artistic projects include creating visuals for German painter Crow’s performance “Unleashed”, "The Last Tribe on Earth" by Anthony Tao (writing) and Liane Halton (music) for the Beijing Bookworm Literary Festival 2019, “Subway Stops” with poet Sara F. Costa for Spittoon, for bimonthly techno event Blackout at Lantern Club Beijing and several Beijing-based bands. Her visuals are characterized by layers of abstract, stock and found footage interspersed with elements from nature. She has been the dramaturg and designed stage projections for scenic reading “Fire and Water” at Penghao Theatre. She directed two performative video installations at Red Gate Gallery and Aotu Studio, and co-directed “City of Mirrors”, a music video for post rock band Macondo together with Gregorio Soravito. Her writing has appeared on Spittoon and Shaving in the Dark. Her analogue photography has been featured on Supchina and her “Animated Analogues” series was exhibited at the first edition of the Gobi Heaven Festival in August 2019.

 

 

Sara F. Costa is a Portuguese writer. She has published five poetry collections in Portugal. Her latest book won the international award “Glória de Sant’Anna” for best poetry book published in Portuguese speaking countries in 2018. She has an MA in Intercultural Studies: Portuguese/Chinese from Tianjin Foreign Studies University. Her verses have been translated into several languages and featured in literary journals all across the world. As an emerging European poet, she was an invited author of the International Istanbul Poetry Festival 2017. In 2018, Sara worked in the organization of The Script Road-Macau Literary Festival and China-European Union Literary Festival in Shanghai and Suzhou. In 2019, she was invited to go to Kolkata, India to share her poetry in the second edition of “Chair Poetry Evenings”. She translates Chinese poetry into Portuguese and is currently living in Beijing coordinating events for the Spittoon Beijing Based Arts Collective while hosting the Spittoon Poetry Workshop.