Output details

Opium Debt

Guangzhou Live invited me to research and develop a site-specific performance to launch Guangzhou Live 011. My on-going interest in postcolonialism and globalization led to investigation of the influence of British imperial trade upon the development of Guangzhou (formerly Canton). Following extensive archive research and studio practice, I developed speculative lines of enquiry into the Opium Wars of 1839-1842 and 1856-1860 to determine its influence in the contemporary social epistemology of both Britain and China. The site to which the work responded was the public façade of the YouYougallery which since its construction in 1959 had been the official ceremony and meeting hall of the Xiaozhou village and is adorned with quotations of Mao Zedong on its walls. The outcomes of the project are threefold: a performance at the opening of Guangzhou Live, a correspondence art campaign involving individually mailing a limited edition postcard to and from China, and finally a print work documenting the project exhibited in the opening group exhibition of A3 Project Space Birmingham. The work was widely reported in local and regional news media in Guangdong province. While in Guangzhou, I also delivered a major lecture on my broader research project, ‘Curating The Eternal Network After Globalisation’ to staff and students at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.

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