45°50’08.1”N 84°12’ 42.3” E

STRATA

2025.08 05-2025.08 20

STRATA is situated across two adjacent sites in Toli County, Xinjiang—once part of a continuous landform, now divided by a suspended mining operation and surrounding natural terrain. This spatial and temporal rupture lies at the core of the project. Here, "strata" refers not only to geological or archival layers, but also to a method of thinking, sensing, and creating.

We invite young artists to engage with this landscape, where industrial remnants and natural regeneration intersect. Time and archaeology are approached as entangled, material, and open-ended processes. The project draws on Elizabeth Grosz’s notion of material temporality and Karen Barad’s theory of spacetime materialization, treating the site as a fluid “living archive,” constantly shifting between past and future, human and non-human, geology and affect.

We welcome proposals that respond to these layered conditions through critical, poetic, or material approaches—exploring thresholds between disciplines, temporal scales, and ontologies, or intervening, attuning, and co-existing within the site itself.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Deadline: July 25, 2025, 23:59 (UK time)
Installation Period: August 5 – August 20, 2025
Exhibition Duration: Works may be temporary or permanent, depending on the proposal.

How to submit:
Please email the following materials to info@149art.com

Title of your proposal
3–5 high-resolution images or sketches
A 100–200 word description of the work
Artist bio (max. 100 words) and contact information

SITE-1 MINING PIT
This is a suspended open-pit mine, measuring 100 × 50 × 25 meters, with a water depth of 20 meters at the bottom.

SITE-2 GOBI DESERT

This rocky hill was once the floor of an ancient ocean. Today, it forms a sharp 90-degree turn, cutting into the earth like a riverbed, with its entrance facing directly toward the highway.

For more images and videos, please refer to: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SROSsAW57w5hyqBU9gx-8XeBLhLLZRxQ?usp=drive_link