曹原铭作品展在美国普渡大学艺术馆展出

    自左向右依次为：印第安纳州议员、曹原铭、普度宗教与中国社会研究中西主任杨凤岗教授

    本站讯  不再陌生，中国教堂——曹原铭作品展于2010年8月30日在美国普渡大学艺术馆举办，展出作品受到了各界人士的一致好评。

    据悉，艺术家曹原铭在9月2日的开幕式上做了题为《大地上的圣堂》的主题演讲。该展览将于10月10日结束。

    相关展览信息
    展览名称:不再陌生,中国教堂——曹原铭作品展
    地址:美国普渡大学艺术馆
    时间:2010.8.30—2010.10.10
    主办单位:美国普度大学宗教与中国社会研究中心普度大学艺术馆

"Strangers No More: Village Churches on the Good Earth of the Sacred Land" will be on display Aug. 30 to Oct. 10 in the Stewart Center Gallery.

Christians used to be viewed as strangers in China, alien to Chinese culture and society, but they are strangers no more in the "sacred land," as the Chinese refer to their beloved country. In rapidly modernizing China, Christian churches have brought about the integration of the sacred elements of Western culture and Chinese grassroots communities to form a special kind of public space in the heart of their communities.

Shanghai artist Yuanming Cao has traveled to hundreds of villages in Suzhou, Anhui, upon which American novelist Pearl Buck's timeless Nobel Prize-winning novel "The Good Earth" was based. Buck, a daughter and wife of American missionaries to China, did not believe Christianity would fit in the "good earth" of this ancient civilization and that the missions were bound to fail.

Ironically, decades after the Chinese Communists drove out American and European missionaries, Chinese villagers themselves have embarked on building churches for themselves. This exhibition presents a series of photographic collages from 2004-2008 focusing on Christian churches in the rural areas of Central China. "Strangers No More" is presented in collaboration with the Purdue Center on Religion and Chinese Society and the College of Liberal Arts.

"The rapid growth of Christianity in China is a perplexing phenomenon that may have profound social and political implications," said Fenggang Yang, director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue. "When so many Chinese have taken upon Christian ways of life, this will inevitably challenge the Chinese to redefine their cultural identity and redesign their political system."

Purdue Galleries will host a lecture and reception at 2 p.m. Sept. 2 in the Stewart Center Gallery. The artist will speak on "Village Churches in Central China," and a reception will immediately follow his remarks. A choir from the Greater Lafayette Chinese Alliance Church will perform some hymns and Chinese popular tunes.