I am shocked that my asialink residency in China has come to an end. Its been an amazing time, where I have felt like I have lived here, and its strange to think about leaving and to think about life after China. You spend a lot of time looking forward to coming here, and then when your here – the differences, the culture, the food, the pace is all so strange and new, you are immersed in it – and life outside of China doesn’t exist. Its hard to find news, its not often you get to speak or read much english. After afew bad attempts we found a VpN service that works, so we can get on a wider range of news sites. After a few weeks, its all easy and flows along, and then the next minute you have to think about leaving, and think about life back in the real world. How does life happen after China? I think back to life in Australia, and it feels so quiet, easy and tranquil compared to the chaos of China. We wonder if we will be bored. I think about leaving the food behind, the flavours, the crazy traffic, the different foods in different regions – Oh, I will miss it so much. On the other hand, I won’t miss the traffic, and I do look forward to seeing blue sky and breathing fresh air.
It will also be interesting to reflect on the work I have done in China. I came here to look at the how globalization is effecting the cultural nuances of emotional expression. Thats a big ask to do in three months – pretty much unacheivable – I am more confused now than when I started. It takes a long time to know the nuances of a people – years and years, not months. Interestingly, I saw more similarities than differences – just another people, dealing with the pressures of life, with probably a lotm ore family commitments and expectancies than we have in Australia. In China, I felt like I was at hthe center of the world, ther was little news about the ‘outside’ world – one jsut becomes engrossed in dealing with everyday life.
I started the Asialink residency in Beijing with a residency at Platform China, with an idea to go to Shenyang, as I heard there was a shop there, that, after paying 30RMB, allowed women to smash appliances in order to vent anger. I thought that this was an interesting american idea, with a japanese outcome, of venting anger. After much research, we found it had all closed down. It was open for a year, and like most strange things cropping up in China, got great internation media coverage.
In Beijing, we met heaps of people and found ourselves immersed in a vibrant art scene. The artist studios felt like factories of artists, the galleries in 798 and cao Chang Di were never ending. There was an incredible interest in the arts, mostly commercially driven. We found the people incredibly warm and generous, and over an art opening, we decided to make a big dinner. Matt, my husband who is a chef agreed to cook. We got five seamstresses to track the emotional connections of the table – by the end of a night a web existed. It was an interesting move for my work, into a new direction, mixing intervention, video, food, wine. The social, responsive, performance aspect intrigued me. Was this something that could just happen in China – no – it could be anywhere. What did it say about China, a lot of the guests talked about the the acceptance of the ‘Chinese’, the fact that they didn’t fight being weaved together. These were mostly western guests, the Chinese guests talked about the sharing, highlighting how interconnected they were to each other, binded by expectations, love and compassion.
