Artist and filmmaker Wang Bing joins us to launch the series with the first London screening of 2010’s Man with No Name, followed by a discussion.
Set in a deserted wasteland in China, Man with No Name intimately captures the daily life and subsistence strategies of a forty-year old cave dweller. Shot over a one-year period, the film follows its anonymous protagonist’s search for food, materials and fertile soil in the neighbouring fields, ruins and villages through the changes in season. Speaking only occasionally to himself, he ploughs and plants his fields, collects rainwater and wood, and mends the mud walls of a homestead he chooses not to live in. A nuanced portrait of human isolation and self-sufficiency, Man with No Name observes life in its most elemental state.
Wang Bing Man with No Name 2010, film still. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Chantal Crousel
Programme
Introduction by the artist
Man with No Name, 2010, DCP, colour, sound, 92 min
Discussion with the artist and Tate Film curators
The Wang Bing: Traces series is programmed in parallel with the UK premiere of Dead Souls at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 27-28 November 2018.