The Bianwen Book I

2002—2014
mixed media installation

Introduction

Bianwen was originally a written record of oral Buddhist teachings that arose after the religion spread from India to China. The teachings were adapted from esoteric Sutras by sujiang (俗講, folk recitation) monks who strove to spread Buddhism among ordinary people by chanting easy to understand stories.⁽¹⁾ These chants and bianwen texts become very popular, and gradually shed their Buddhist character as they were developed into legends, novels, operas, music and other folk art forms to satisfy popular taste.

Chen Chieh-jen has always seen film making as an activity that can bring together dissidents or those who have been marginalized, an opportunity to freely investigate any topic, a means of breaking through existing barriers between professionals and amateurs, and an experiment in forming temporary, heterogeneous communities. Inspired by bianwen’s intercultural qualities, adaptability and the multiple forms it has assumed throughout history, Chen has reassembled his ten years of creating storyboards for his video artwork, documentary photographs, symbolic items, film clips, and temporary screening venues into an installation titled The Bianwen Book I. The installation is a contemporary, three-dimensional admix of video, writing⁽²⁾, painting, installation art and film and theater sets.

Unlike sujiang chants and bianwen texts, Chen’s Bianwen Book does not reinterpret, convert or rewrite canonical theories. Rather, it presents dissent through re-imagining and re-writing the narratives of people and events that are made invisible or difficult to define by bio-politics and the structure of the political economy.

Notes

1. Sujiang chanting arose in China during the Tang Dynasty (713—741) and continued until Song Dynasty Emperor Zhenzong (997—1021) banned the practice. Over the ensuing years many bianwen texts had been lost. The Hungarian-British archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein and French sinologist Paul Eugène Pelliot discovered many bianwen texts and bianxiang (變相) illustrations in the library chamber of Dunhuang’s Mogao Caves in 1907 and 1908 respectively. Stein and Pelliot removed these artifacts to England and France by bribing Taoist priest and abbot of the Mogao Caves Wang Yuanlu, thus acquiring them for a very low price. It was not until this incident that sujiang, bianwen and bianxiang were rediscovered by the Chinese people. The discovery also shed light on the sudden rise of story telling in the Song Dynasty and the content sources of many operas and musical forms. For more information see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bianwen.
2. See: The Bianwen Book I – A Genealogy of My Cultural References

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