THE GREAT WALK

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Chambers' students in China - quoting after Mao Zedong - said, "He who has not climbed The Great Wall is not a true man." Chambers climbed/walked part of it at Mu Tian Yu near Beijing, so he guesses he is 'part man'. The day he was there, he felt an intimacy that most visitors don't feel, perhaps, due to very few people touring the ancient barrier. He put together the video below to accentuate his experience. The video is filter-enhanced to show shadow detail of the steps and to blend Chambers and the wall as 'one'. The speed of the video is slowed down to dwell on the experience and to enhance the sound of the wind.

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Still images of The Great Wall follow:

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Chambers taught English, Media/Communications (Sheng Da College) and Digital/New Media Art (Zhaoqing University) in China over a four-year period. His experiences with the students at Sheng Da Colllege can be viewed here, and photographs of his involvement with the students at the Fine Arts Department, Zhaoqing University follow:

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Tom R. Chambers joined the Department to develop and teach a Digital/New Media Art Program. He and his students collaborated with Beijing Film Academy (Beijing, China), Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University (Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.), Maine College of Art (Portland, Maine, U.S.A.), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, New York, U.S.A.), National Chengchi University (Taipei, Taiwan), Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S.A.) and University of Louisville (Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A.) in joint student projects/exhibitions, off- and on-line.

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As a Board Member for the IDAA during this same time period, Chambers was instrumental in bringing the IDAA 2005 Exhibition to the Today Gallery in Beijing, China under the auspices of the Beijing Film Academy (New Media Department), and he also included the work of a core group of his students at Zhaoqing University under the namesake of "Red". A couple of photographs follow of the opening ceremonies:

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Through networking on both ends - China and Australia - Chambers was able to bring the pertinent parties together for this international showing of Digital and New Media Art. The Beijing Film Academy and the IDAA (now affiliated with the QUT Museum in Australia) have now entered into an agreement to make this process an annual event.

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Through Chambers' affiliation with the IDAA and his connection (conducted a retrospective seminar there, initially) with the Beijing Film Academy, he was also able to involve his art students at Zhaoqing University with those art students at the academy in a collaborative exhibition as a sidebar to the 2005 IDAA Exhibition. This aspect was more meaningful to Chambers in the sense that his students had an opportunity for greater exposure to the Arts at a prestigious gallery and in a metropolitan setting.

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The 2005 IDAA Exhibition in China and its consequent annual, cultural exchange between this country and Australia is a credit to Chambers' wherewithal in bringing outside (namely, Western) artistic impetus to the art community (and others) in China for greater understanding and exchange of ideas. Since this exhibition, Xu Da Wei, his dean and another New Media Art professor at the Beijing Film Academy have had the opportunity to travel to Australia and be a part of the 2006 IDAA Exhibition which focused on Chinese Digital and New Media Art.

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Chambers was Executive Committee Member and Juror for the IDAA (International Digital Art Award [based in Australia]), 2003, 2004 and 2005 IDAA exhibitions. He was instrumental in expanding the content of the IDAA to include New Media Art, and served as online New Media Director (2004 - 2005). Click on statements to read Chambers' comments as a Juror for the IDAA. Director's statement.