Many people enjoy the experience of being outsiders in their own culture in China if a dramatic exhibition that opened in Sydney this week is to be believed.
Film-maker Cao Fei has documented the destruction of villages and the abandonment of buildings over the past 20 years. Old picture theatres, water melon stands, street singers and even a disused ATM mourn the passing of the old ways.
But in their place she has remade the city using cyber aesthetics, virtual reality and avatars to create a metaverse, on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Ironically, artists can prosper in scenes of urban decay. Cao occupied the picture theatre in Guangzhou which had shown movies to workers in the 1960s and made her own.
This act of reinhabiting abandoned spaces with technology is the theme of Cao Fei: My City is Yours with Cao taking the position of observer and juxtaposing the new against the old, creating a strange surreal movie set.
The best way of describing My City is Yours is to call it a megacity of precincts and zones, of cityscapes, soulless factories run by AI, attempts by artists and young cosplayers, who dress up like anime characters, to reinhabit the spaces.
At first, artists believed in the digital future and Cao designed a new RMB City on Second Life, a once popular online platform in the early 2000s, where users could interact communally.
She doesn’t provide answers to the dystopian problems of rapid urbanisation but global movements by the young, such as hip hop, can at least provide some transformation.
The more emotionally-direct exhibits were commissioned for the Sydney show, a re-establishment of the Marigold restaurant that closed during the lockdown, involvement of Australian/Chinese locals in amusing dances in places around Sydney and the tragic memorial to Cao’s sister who died in 2022.
Cao Xiaoyun was also an artist who emigrated to Sydney in the ‘90s. Her lovely little abstract drawings and prints provide a quiet place in this noisy exhibition, what Cao calls a “patient gaze”.
“Our parents were artists, sculptors,” Cao told Australian Arts Review. “We did drawings of each other. My sister never had an exhibition. She was lonely here.”
A back story involving their childhood was written by Cao and translated. Her sister was originally adopted into the family and local neighbourhood kids used to tease Cao about her sister’s different appearance.
“We had complicated relationships. My sister was a citizen of Australia,” she said. “For Asians who live here it’s quite complex.”
Artists bravely deal with emotions that can be difficult to share. Her sister liked the Golden Wattle and Cao has taken this as a symbol for the connection between the two countries.
At first sight, this exhibition is welcoming through the reproduction of the concierge’s desk at the old picture theatre. Some of Cao’s movies run for 60 minutes and there is a lot to watch plus virtual reality gear to make the exhibition interactive. The exhibition raises questions about how this can be achieved.
Cao Fei takes mass culture and infuses it with intimate moments, suggesting that people will always find something in the cracks, even if it’s not humour. The footage of Claudia Chan Shaw doing a hip hop dance in a Terry White chemist comes closest to joy.
Cao Fei: My City is Yours
Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery Road, The Domain (Sydney)
Exhibition continues to 13 April 2025
Entry fees apply
For more information, visit: www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au for details.
Images: (1 & 2) Installation view of the Cao Fei: My City is Yours at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, artworks © Cao Fei. Courtesy the artist, Vitamin Creative Space and Sprüth Magers, photo © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Diana Panuccio | (3) Cao Fei at the Art Gallery of New South Wakles – photo by Rhonda Dredge
Words: Rhonda Dredge