Gosh, its been hard to get online – and we just got lost into Shanghai. I am not sure what Shanghai was about in the end – mostly eating – Nick and Bree brought us to some great restaurants that we wouldn’t have usually gone to. We walked around a lot with mics, cameras, tripods to shoot, but no luck. We found some great barbers – one had set up shop under a highway – with a mirror and a seat. We had a friend Nick to translate for us – and we tried to throw a bit of money into the equation – but no luck – no cameras! Strange, but out of the wood work came a well dressed fellow who started asking us a lot of questions, started videoing us, and then following us for about twenty minutes. This was hard to make sense of. Was it just some intrigued person? was it some sort of secret police? The following us, and videoing us for twenty minutes was a bit disconcerting. We tried another Barber, an old man and woman – again, no luck. So who knows? Frustrating, but it was great to spend time in Shanghai.
We have been in Chongqing for five days now, Huang Jueping, Jiulongpo District, and still settling in. Chongqing is in the middle of China – a sprawling growing city of 35 million people – the biggest city in the world. It hasn’t got the feel of the metropolis of shanghai – feels a lot more provincial. We arrived Monday night from Shanghai. After hours in a cab, and the city never ended we ended up in Huang Jueping– the apartment blocks are filled full of murals and graffiti – commissioned by the government. The streets are filled full of artshops, art courses – the Sichuan Art Academy is based here. It’s a great area.
I am doing a residency with Organhaus, an organization based at 501 warehouse.It has a gallery space downstairs, and office space on the 2nd floor. It has a few apartments available to international artists. The apartments are large – three bedrooms each, about 90 square meters, situated right behind the gallery. It’s a great set up. As we were showed the apartment, I internally cringed. There was little furniture, and all the remnants of the last people staying were everywhere – filled ashtrays, dirty sheets, mouldy coffee cups with more cigarettes in them, enough grime to think it hadn’t been cleaned for months on end. I used to be able to handle this grime when I was younger, living with uni students in Melbourne – but now, with Pablo – I freak out a bit. We did a search for clean sheets and towels – I didn’t shower for two days as I wanted to spend as little time in the bathroom as possible. I hardly moved in the bed for fear of bedbugs. Finally we realized there was no other apartment or hotel to go to, so we stocked up on cleaning chemicals and started scrubbing. A full day later, and every surface scrubbed – it’s a lot better – livable, and I don’t think I will ever qet rid of the smell that eminates from the bathroom. I am on the search for incense. We bought new pillows, some slippers, some cutlery and glasses and stocked the fridge with a bit of food. We put everything through the wash. Its amazing what a bit of cleaning does. Slowly, its started to feel like home – other than some sort of mouldy substances inside the cupboards in the kitchen (which I won’t open), and a bathroom that will always smell a bit- it’s a fine place to live. We settled in quickly despite the shaky beginning.
