Cosmopolis #1.5: Enlarged Intelligence

Yasmin Smith – Flooded Rose Red Basin, 2018

During October/November 2018, Yasmin Smith undertook a seven-week residency in Sichuan province in southwest China to produce a major new ceramics installation, Flooded Rose Red Basin, for Cosmopolis #1.5: Enlarged Intelligence, curated by Kathryn Weir (with associate curator Ilaria Conti and assistant curator Zhang Hanlu). It is the second major exhibition associated with the biennial Cosmopolis platform which was launched by the Centre Pompidou, Paris, in 2016. Cosmopolis #1.5 is supported by the Mao Jihong Arts Foundation and hosted in Chengdu.

Smith’s studio for Cosmopolis #1.5 was the Jinhui Ceramic Sanitary Ware Factory in Wuchangzhen in the agricultural and industrial lands of the Chengdu Plain. This site is geologically situated in the Sichuan Red Basin. There she developed and produced a major new site-specific installation, Flooded Rose Red Basin, which included three new ash glazes derived from organic material sourced in the area.