Guest artist QIAN QIAN joins independent curator, consultant and Reike instructor BECCA PELLY-FRY to discuss her work via 'Cosmicomics' by Italo Calvino. First published in Italian in 1965 and in English in 1968, Cosmicomics is a collection of short stories, mostly circling around a character called Qfwfq, which connect to real events in the history of the universe.
Becca and Qian Qian talk about parody, craters, peduncles, dinosaurs, fingernails, eclipses, tadpoles, surrealism, flipping, bitumen, seahorses, lentils, cartilage, honey, moulds, pollens, worms, resin, pepper, gravity, acrobatics , Galileo, astrophysics , labyrinth, apparatus, trilobites , embyro, starch crystals, sturgeon eggs, gelatinous matter, mineral salts, combustion residue, scabby terrain, Big Bang , scientific theory, amazing creativity, deep time, human urgency , banal mundanity, Milky Way, judging others, zinc cliffs, moon milk, imaginative worlds, Chinese medicine, resolution changes, zombie movie Monty Python, watercolor paintings, Scottish countryside, scientific imagery, hero's journey , space bodies, celestial bodies, measuring devices, zen philosophy, black hole, sepia tint, spiritual rebirth, cosmic egg , world building, participatory art, energetic realm, spiritual journey, drinking whiskey, evolutionary biology, invisible radiation, ancient civilization, traditional Buddhism, dusk til dawn, the Italian resistance, grumpy old men, thousand armed being, flights of fancy, pillars of ice, reasoning and logic, stream of consciousness, cosmic know-it-all, climbing onto the moon, being dragged into the story, combining science and literature, the dream inside the dream inside the dream, and the light of near-death experiences.
QIAN QIAN
qianqianart.org
@ivyivymuami
'Fountains of Enceladus' Lychee One 30 April - 30 May 2026
'La Mariposa (Butterfly Woman)' Soho Revue 12 Feb - 15 March 2025
BECCA PELLY-FRY
beccapellyfry.com
@beccapf
'La Mariposa'
ARTISTS
Cecilia Charlton
Holly Stevenson
Lee Bontecue
Leonora Carrington
Marina Abramovic
Takis (Panayiotis Vassilakis)
William Blake
BOOKS + FILM + WRITERS
Alejandro Jodorowsky 'The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky'
Alejandro Jodorowsky 'The Holy Mountain'
Clarissa Pinkola Estês 'Women Who Run with the Wolves'
Galileo Galilei
Italo Calvino 'If On a Winter's Night a Stranger'
Italo Calvino 'Invisible Cities'
Julio Cortázar 'Cronopios Famas'
Monty Python 'Life of Brian'
GALLERIES + EVENTS
Gallery 66
Lychee One
Open Art Folke
Soho Revue
