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The DUT Confucius Institute hosting
MAGIC CHINESE CHARACTERS EXHIBITION
To introduce the development of Chinese Characters and to showcase the excellent works created by the DUT CI staff and Mandarin learners, the MAGIC CHINESE CHARACTERS: CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY WORKS EXHIBITION is co-hosted by Durban University of Technology, Confucius Institute at DUT, and DUT Art Gallery, the opening ceremony of which is successfully held on the evening of April 11th at DUT Art Gallery at Steve Biko Campus. More than 250 invited guests, including H E Mr Wang Jianzhou, Consul General of China in Durban, attended the Opening night and enjoyed a feast of Chinese language and calligraphic art.
The Exhibition consists of two sections: the Evolution of Chinese Characters and the DUT CI Chinese Calligraphy Works. The first section is displayed on 33 panel posters, giving a panoramic introduction of the origin and evolution of Chinese characters. The second section consists of 45 pieces of art works with two categories, all created by the staff and learners at DUT Confucius Institute. Among the first category are some selected Chinese Calligraphy artworks produced by the DUT CI learners, who are learning calligraphy writing while studying Mandarin, and who are most impressive in incorporating Zulu culture and Indian Culture into Chinese Calligraphy creation when producing the art works here. Other works are created by the CI instructor, Mr Josh Xin Xiao, a young talented artist from Jiangxi Province, China, who has the expertise in writing Chinese Calligraphy in different styles. The second category includes some of the best selected Chinese Character Writing works from the 2nd Chinese Character Writing Competition hosted by the DUT Confucius Institute in April, 2016. The creators are all DUT students from different departments, having learned Mandarin for from a few hours to a couple of months. Though new in learning a different language, they show great talents in understanding the magic of the language and the writing the old Chinese characters.
The selected artworks showcase some well-known Chinese ancient poems from Tang Dynasty, some describing emotionally the beautiful landscape, while some highlighting the thoughtful contemplation on life. Different writing styles in Chinese Character development history, like the seal inscription, the official inscription, the standard inscription, the running inscription and the cursive inscription, etc. are intelligently adopted by these talents DUT Mandarin learners in these art works.
“The Exhibition will be from April 11th 2016 to April 29th 2016 at the DUT Art Gallery and will enable the visitors to better understand part of China’s history and culture, specially help gain a general impression of the development of Chinese language heritage”, said Dr Eddie Fu, co-dean of the DUT Confucius Institute.
Picture 1: VIP guests presented at the Opening night: from left to right: Mr Devanathan Govindasamy, Professor Graham Stewart, Chinese Consul General Mr Wang Jianzhou, Mrs Kiran, Govindasamy, Consul Ning Jun, and Dr Eddie Chaobo Fu
Picture 2: a intelligent Chinese calligraphic painting “Zulu Mama”, created by CI Mandarin learner Khulekani Cele