Transformation through travel has been a favorite topic for many writers. For the Life of Discovery participants, such literary excursions were a self-changing voyage which endowed them with an encompassing experience of the world as well as a deeper understanding of their home cultures. Launched by the IWP in cooperation with the Chinese Writers’ Association, the Life ofDiscovery (LOD) exchange brought together writers and artists from the UnitedStates and from the minority ethnic communities in the western regions of mainland China.
Delegates of both countries explored a variety of cultural and historical sites, including the Mogao Caves, Emperor Qin’s Terracotta Army in Xi’An, and the postmodern 798 ArtDistrict in Beijing. These diverse cultural locales put the writers in contact with rich geographical and cultural landscapes, and breathed life into new writings produced during the proceedings.
It was in their collaborative projects that the participants coulddisplay the full palette of their artistic skills and practices. In Dunhuang,senior artists Edward Carey, Hu Xuewen, and Xi Chuan huddled together todevelop the most fertile creative writing activities and to strengthencooperation among the delegates across languages.
Fulbright scholar Anne Wilson, who joined the delegation as asculptor and visual artist, employed the Buddhist image of the lotus flower in a two-part art installation inspired by the group’s travels in China. FilmmakerSteve Delahoyde worked vigorously to capture memorable images of the exchange in preparation or a feature-length documentary film that is currently inproduction. After the first phase in May, each of the delegates submitted apiece of original writing glossing the journey from their personal perspectives. These texts were then translated into English and Chinese respectively, with the goal of transcending the language barrier and addressing a transnational readership.
The program moved through an array of styles and techniques,including many experimental creative writing exercises such as a theatrical“exquisite corpse” game led by playwright and fiction writer Tang Ying, apoetry workshop with IWP director, the poet and translator Christopher Merrill,several fiction-writing workshops led respectively by IWP Associate DirectorHugh Ferrer and two distinguished members of the fall residency Ge Fei fromChina and and Dung Kai Cheung from Hong Kong. The writers reflected onclassigal literary-tropes such as landscape, subjectivity, and personal stylein writing. Artist Anne Wilson presented two art installations, one of whichwas a work made with materials she had brought from China, and which werepresented with a Chinese & English text-collage containing Google-generated translations of Whitman’s poem, “I Hear America Singing.”
Through collaboration and interactive experiments, the LOD programproduced distinct and unique results. The poetry and prose penned in its coursehave been translated into Chinese and English. A special bilingual issue of anational journal, Yellow River Literature, appeared in China; a number of thetexts have been published in IWP’s online journal 91st Meridian. A printed booklet, a website, and an accompanying film featuringamong other issues the sample exercises and responses by various authors thatcould be deployed in creative writing practices in China and the US.
Delegates of both countries explored a variety of cultural and historical sites, including the Mogao Caves, Emperor Qin’s Terracotta Army in Xi’An, and the postmodern 798 ArtDistrict in Beijing. These diverse cultural locales put the writers in contact with rich geographical and cultural landscapes, and breathed life into new writings produced during the proceedings.
It was in their collaborative projects that the participants coulddisplay the full palette of their artistic skills and practices. In Dunhuang,senior artists Edward Carey, Hu Xuewen, and Xi Chuan huddled together todevelop the most fertile creative writing activities and to strengthencooperation among the delegates across languages.
Fulbright scholar Anne Wilson, who joined the delegation as asculptor and visual artist, employed the Buddhist image of the lotus flower in a two-part art installation inspired by the group’s travels in China. FilmmakerSteve Delahoyde worked vigorously to capture memorable images of the exchange in preparation or a feature-length documentary film that is currently inproduction. After the first phase in May, each of the delegates submitted apiece of original writing glossing the journey from their personal perspectives. These texts were then translated into English and Chinese respectively, with the goal of transcending the language barrier and addressing a transnational readership.
The program moved through an array of styles and techniques,including many experimental creative writing exercises such as a theatrical“exquisite corpse” game led by playwright and fiction writer Tang Ying, apoetry workshop with IWP director, the poet and translator Christopher Merrill,several fiction-writing workshops led respectively by IWP Associate DirectorHugh Ferrer and two distinguished members of the fall residency Ge Fei fromChina and and Dung Kai Cheung from Hong Kong. The writers reflected onclassigal literary-tropes such as landscape, subjectivity, and personal stylein writing. Artist Anne Wilson presented two art installations, one of whichwas a work made with materials she had brought from China, and which werepresented with a Chinese & English text-collage containing Google-generated translations of Whitman’s poem, “I Hear America Singing.”
Through collaboration and interactive experiments, the LOD programproduced distinct and unique results. The poetry and prose penned in its coursehave been translated into Chinese and English. A special bilingual issue of anational journal, Yellow River Literature, appeared in China; a number of thetexts have been published in IWP’s online journal 91st Meridian. A printed booklet, a website, and an accompanying film featuringamong other issues the sample exercises and responses by various authors thatcould be deployed in creative writing practices in China and the US.
