Gallery
InART Space
Year
2021
Location
Tainan, Taiwan
Ｍaterial
Installation, wood, postcards, shopping bag, digital printing, giclée, neon light, LED, plaster, PVC, FRP
This is a precursory exhibition of There is no Chinatown, the extended project of residency in New Zealand in 2018. A precursor is meant to provide a summary or a guide. It generally refers to a museum display, guide center, website, advertisement, or flyer.
As an information intermediary, it is given a similar role as a guide, meanwhile, it also has become the subjective construction ahead of reality.
Based on this concept, we intend to sketch the cultural landscape of the ‘New World’ that was seen in the southern hemisphere during our residency through the instructive archival characteristics we collected. Those are the pictures taken during the trip and the research of the digital archive from the Auckland War Memorial Museum that provides a rich collection of biological specimens and pictures of the archaeological skeletons. Departing from the perspective of overseas Chinese immigrants, 'There is no Chinatown' employs the fictitious audio guide of real estate to touch the dreams of the gold rush that away from reality. The exhibition title Newww.Land.com, nonsense misspelled URL, provokes to question of “Where is New World?” The alphabetical sequence without a functional link has been superimposed with a new meaning to transform into an actual fictitious platform of navigation. The "New World" thus fits in with the imaginary unknown land. Throughout this context, the exhibition serves as a path to explore "how to know the local" and to reveal how archives affect reality. Like a profound fable, it implicitly observes and understands the existence of beings.
Photo © Working Hard. Photographed by Joseph HO.