Acknowledgement: This magazine is dedicated to the course (VIS328H1: Publication Platform) at University of Toronto. Not for commercial use.
Editor Zhilei (Jolie) Zhou Art Director Zhilei (Jolie) Zhou Supervisors Jayne Wilkinson Nasrin Himada
Courtesy of the Artists Cao Fei Weng Fen Michael Wolf Minjun Yue
fROM THE EDITOR Jolie Zhou
The title “Black is not Black” with its bilingual part “White is not White” in Chinese implies that the cultural dislocation is invisible, which at the same time is problematic. This volume aims to deconstruct the various forms of cultural dislocation and to take a critical perspective on the rapid transformation of contemporary China. After Cultural Revolution, more and more young people in China leave suburban areas and storm in big cities for making better lives. Cultural dislocation has become a crucial issue for all these young people about how the new values in the city collide with their traditional values. As a person who had lived in a suburban area of Guangzhou (China) before primary school, I was sensitive to the difference between people in the cities and in the suburban areas. My father was born in a farmer’s family. He decided not to live a farmer’s life as my grandfather did, so he went to the city and had himself become a businessman. This type of men is called Phoenix Man in contemporary China. This term is more likely to be a derogatory term because it describes a man who works really hard in the city and eventually becomes rich, yet they still hold the very traditional Chinese values. This group of men is despised by a part of the intellectuals and city girls. They nevertheless represent the result of common cultural dislocation in China. With the fast development of GDP in China, a large discrepancy between the culture of suburban areas and that of cities has been generated. Except for the case I have talked about, cultural dislocation is happening in various forms. Nevertheless, the most worrisome part of cultural dislocation is that people are not alerted for the invasion of other cultures. I have to specify my point here that “other cultures” are referred to any culture other than the local culture. My hometown, which is Guangzhou, is a good example for the silent cultural dislocation ▲2
on the aspect of language. My essay on how the slang and swearing can be a way to defend our own cultural identities would explain why people are not easy to aware of the threats from other cultures, and how the universal language can wipe out our local cultures. The selected works of this volume from several contemporary artists have more or less concerned about different types of cultural dislocation on China. Two photographers, Weng Fen (China) and Michael Wolf (Germany), focuses respectively on the transformation of the cityscape and the conflicts between the modern values and the traditional values through the daily scenes. Some of the Chinese independent films also increasingly depict this social reality in a poetic and artistic way. Kaili Blues (2015) is a film made by Bi Gan, which presents the entanglement of a man’s memory and fantasy in a mystical, subtropical province of Guizhou. The film beautifully shows the suburban life, wherein it also shows the struggle of the suburban people. Cao Fei, whose works were exhibited in MoMA PS1 this year, was a multi-disciplinary artist from Guangzhou. Most of her works explore the relation between the spiritual aspect and the social aspect of human. The reason for showcasing her work is that she particularly shows the youth in China reside their spirituality on the virtual world, the Internet. Two emerging artists, Winnie Wu and Naichen Pan, focuses on different aspects of cultural dislocation. Winnie’s work unfolds the history of her greatgreat grandfather, who used to work as a railway man for Canadian Pacific Railway, to reveal the difficult life of a Chinese man in a different culture. Naichen’s paintings take a critical perspective to reconsider the representation of Chinese culture from an Orientalist perspective. These paintings present the different gestures that the Orientalism gradually affects how the Chinese perceive their cultures. In short, most of the selected works directly address the concerns for the phenomenon of the cultural dislocation that is specified to Chinese society or Chinese people. It is very crucial to bring this topic to the nonChinese cultural communities because this magazine can also raise the awareness of this phenomenon in their societies. Cultural dislocation is not an urgent problem that endangers our lives; nevertheless, it indeed endangers our precious traditional cultures. This magazine is developed as a project for Publication Platform course at University of Toronto, but it may be continuously developed as the commitment to the cultural dislocation in different nations. ▲3
Contents Editorial
Jolie Zhou
2
Portfolio
Weng Fen
Sitting On the Wall
5
Commentary
Jolie Zhou
The Implication of Cultural Dislocation in the Transformation of the Cityscape 11 Film Review
Huibin Luo
On the Poetic Edge of Life
14
Real Fake Art Portrait made in China 1997-1998
16
Portfolio
Michael Wolf
Commentary
Jolie Zhou
Deconstruct the Photographs of Michael Wolf through A Sociological Lens 22 Essay
Jolie Zhou
Construction of Identity through Slang and Swearing
26
Portfolio
Winnie Wu
28
Commentary
Jolie Zhou
Tracing Back to the History of A Chinese Railway Man in Canada 31 Portfolio
Cao Fei
32
Weng Fen “Guangzhou 3” from Sitting on the Wall 2002-03
Commentary
Jolie Zhou
Spiritual World of People in China 34 Portfolio
Naichen Pan
36
Commentary
Jolie Zhou
Traditional Chinese Landscape as A Superficial Symbol for Chinese Culture 39
Weng Fen “Shenzhen 1” from Sitting on the Wall 2002-03
Weng Fen “Haikou 2” from Sitting on the Wall 2002-03
Weng Fen “Guangzhou” from Sitting on the Wall 2002-03
The Implication of Cultural Dislocation in the Transformation of the Cityscape Jolie Zhou
It is quite poetic that the little girl sitting on the wall silently watches the rapid transformation of cities. Yet we can see through the cityscape to get a glimpse of the fragility of this transformation. Weng Fen has traveled to different cities in China to take this series of photographs. People hardly see how exactly cultural dislocation takes place in daily life because the change happens in every second. Weng Fen is smart enough to choose young girls as the witnesses for the transformation of cities. The younger generation witnesses the high-rise buildings to be built up day by day. This scene seems to be blended into their daily lives. Furthermore, the construction at the background is contrasted with the old walls that the little girls sit on. There is a strong contrast between the modern culture and the forgotten culture, which implies the collision between the new values and the traditional values. In an interview, Weng Fen states, “The girls are now us; the city faraway is the product of modernization. The city has become a symbol for civilization and modern progress in this era, and a belief for modernization. If we calmly watch this excessive progress of the cities and ourselves in the cities, we can see that human’s desire is the root problem. The girl is the symbol of desire; we can see our impulses, dreams, confusion, and expectation through the girl’s gaze.”*2 ▲11
on the poetic edge of life Film Review on Kaili Blues (Dir. Bi Gan, China,2015) Huibin Luo
Men replacing men control the world. Hell subverting hell becomes the heaven. - The Poet and Singer, Bi Gan Chen lives a life of marginal people. He was a muscle of a local gang before he sentenced to 9 years in prison. He read a lot and wrote poetries in the prison. To compensate the regrets not seeing his mother and wife passed away during his sentence, he sets up a journey, for helping the old colleague find her lost lover and for finding back his nephew. To Chen, the journey is a redemption, a struggle to get back the meaning of life.
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The life dies with cigarettes and revives with memories. Sometimes you just can’t help thinking why these people have been always smoking. Chen smokes a lot. Nicotine burns in the core of this suburban life. It is the life, in every morning, people suck up a big bowl of spicy rice noodle, “sucking up the essence of life”. It is the life, in which people deep fry fish from local rivers, and cook it with local beer, without bothering the river pollution. It is also the life, people carved down “I love you Xiao Li”, and “been here” with nail clippers and snubbed out their cigarettes on public properties. In this film, Chen walks to you from this style of life. A mid-aged, deplorable peasant-like male with crime record, walks to you. Isn’t it amazing, when you can actually understand his pain on the screen? Mountains, water, cracked cement columns of the house, sludged soil after rain, and wild grass on the tomb of ancestors, all these mystically peaceful scenes were honestly recorded by Chen’s poetry. Only dead people don’t get sick, the old doctor said. Yes, and only boring people don’t get bored of his life. Chen explores the edge of his life with poetry. There are always some places in the world, too far to even imagine. The short trips on the motorcycle, on the pick-up, in the alleys of Dangmai village, and on the train, constitute the nonlinear timeline suggests the metaphors from Diamon Sutra. Life is always out of your grip, in the past, in the presence, in the future.
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Michael Wolf Real Fake Art 16 2005-2007
Michael Wolf Portrait 10 from Portrait made in China 1997-1998
Michael Wolf Portrait 13 from Portrait made in China 1997-1998
Michael Wolf Portrait 05 from Portrait made in China 1997-1998
Michael Wolf Portrait 08 from Portrait made in China 1997-1998
Deconstruct the Photographs of Michael Wolf through A Sociological Lens Jolie Zhou
Michael Wolf is a German photographer who has spent the vast majority of time in Asia. The portrait photographs that he made in the late-1990s China provided an excellent documentary about the conflict between the countryside environment and the people who had been influenced by the foreign goods. Most Chinese mainstream journalists focused on the “neglectedâ€? fashion of these portraits. However, I am more interested in the strong contrast between the photographs, and between the subjects and the background of the photographs. I have shown two pairs of photographs, which I paired them on purpose. They are strongly contrasted through the content. For me, the pair of Portrait 10 and Portrait 13 shows a son who works in the city and the parents who wait for him at countryside home. The modern cityscape in Shanghai of Portrait 10 contrasts with the gloomy face of the man. He does not seem to fit in the modern setting. This is a common phenomenon that the countryside people go to city for earning a better life but they still cannot live like an urbanite. Moreover, the lifestyles and values in urban areas are more Westernized and openminded. People from the suburban areas find it hard to adapt the new values and tend to hold the Chinese traditional values. For example, the tradition values ask the women have to get married as soon as possible, and the men have to support the whole family. Therefore, we still can see the man carries a rustic bag, which is often seen in countryside, on his shoulder in Portrait 10. â–˛22
Both Portrait 05 and Portrait 08 present the background on the countryside. This pair of photographs is very interesting due to the extreme polarization of the suburban culture. Portrait 05 shows the fashion young girls who have adapted the foreign culture and fashion aesthetics; and Portrait 08 shows an old man who is a traditional Chinese farmer. They are situated at the same countryside settings, but are radically different. Hence, the silent invasion of the foreign culture in China is easily seen in this pair of Portrait 05 and Portrait 08. Last but not least, the pictures from the Real Fake Art also functions as a record of the suburban life in Shenzhen (China) from a Sociological perspective. Some reviewer wrote that “the pictures from Real Fake Art document intimate cultural and economic facets of globalization even as they record and complicate critical dilemmas about authenticity and the non-economic values of arts”*3. Real Fake Art 16 has shown a scene that David Hockney’s painting is blended into a daily setting where a man is sleeping on a worn-out sofa under the painting. The contrast between the contemporary art and poor condition of the suburban life seems to question globalization. On the one hand, the contemporary art becomes more important in the public field in China; on the other hand, the contemporary art is highly constrained within the cities. As a result, people in the suburban areas are experiencing the increasing discrepancy between the city cultures and the suburban cultures with the fast development Michael Wolf of globalization. Portrait 11 from Portrait made in China ▲23
1997-1998
Jolie Zhou Emoji Revolution Poster 2016
Construction of Identity through Slang and Swearing Jolie Zhou
Figure 4. The base of Dongguan Yuanchonghuan Memorial statue.
Language has been ignored as one of the reasons for the cultural dislocation in China. Guangzhou, where most of the people speak Cantonese rather than Mandarin before 1956, was formally called Canton by the English speakers. Since the 1990s, some of the schools prohibited students speak Cantonese in schools. Although people were not happy with this rule, they accepted it because they had to. It was the order from the higher command. Around the same time, children in Guangzhou gradually lost their interest in Cantonese and even Cantonese animation. This fact is necessarily true for part of Guangzhou because I am one of the children who is from the 1990s. However, most of my cousins were born in the 2000s. Neither they speak Cantonese fluently, nor they understand some of the Cantonese slangs and dirty words. â–˛26
2010, Guangzhou government advised changing the broadcasting language from Cantonese to Mandarin in the news channel or the general channel of Guangzhou Television station. Surprisingly, over 80 percent of people were against this suggestion. After this suggestion came out, two protests against this suggestion were held in the same year in Guangzhou. People strongly rejected this suggestion because they want to keep Cantonese as part of the Guangzhou traditional culture (岭南文化). Nevertheless, the News Simulcast in Mandarin from China Central Television (CCTV) inevitably started to be broadcasted in Guangzhou Television after those two protests. A Hong Kong scholar whose nickname is Ben Sir*6, suggests that the Cantonese slang and swearing are the ways to preserve this language. Thus, he holds a program in TVB to teach people Cantonese slang and dirty words. He states that, the culture does not affect our daily lives; even though it disappears, it does not have instant and large impact on us. However, the problem is that the disappearance of Cantonese does not necessarily influence our lives, so we take it as natural and unproblematic. I have made a poster to encourage cross-nation communication in Fall 2016. Yet there is another problem for the universal language. Language is a solid way to construct an individual’s identity. Universal language can erase the specific cultural identity of an individual. As a result, a dialect is necessary for constructing one’s identity. Slang and swearing, which are rooted in the very specific local culture, are the way to fight against the universal language.
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Figure 5. “Support Cantonese” protest in Guangzhou.
Winnie Wu Iron Horse and the Pig 2015 Film Stil 17:28 https://vimeo.com/124649973
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Winnie Wu Oh Canada! Our Home and Native Land 2014 Gavel, Grass, Soil
â–˛29
「
Project description of Iron Horse and the Pig: Iron Horse and the Pig is a personal documentary focusing on the artist’s great-great grandfather, who was a former Chinese railway worker died alone in Toronto in 1993. The artist conveys the story through a cross-nation root-tracking journey. The documentary interweaves interviews, archival footage, personal narratives and vérité footage of the journey from China to Canada, in concerns of race, class and the history of migration.
」
Winnie Wu A Chinaman’s Grave 2015 35mm B/W film
Winnie wU’S WORK: Tracing back to the history of a Chinese Railway Man in canada Jolie Zhou
Cultural dislocation can refer to “when people live their lives on someone else’s terms other than their own, for example living to social and cultural cues that they did not live with before”*7. Winnie’s Iron Horse and the Pig, Oh Canada! Our Home and Native Land, A Chinaman’s Grave all belong to the same project that presents her personal investigation of her great-great grandfather’s past by using different mediums. We can get a glimpse of the history of Chinese immigrants through the documentary, where one of the interviewees describes the trip to Canada as “being sold as the pig.” Winnie’s Oh Canada! Our Home and Native Land is an installation work that consists of the rocks from the Canadian Pacific Railway. The shape of the installation refers to the shape of Canadian Pacific Railway, which implies the contributions from many Chinese workers. A Chinaman’s Grave shows the grave of her great-great father in Canada, which can be seen as a return to the beginning of the journey. Her great-grandfather died young after the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, where many Chinese workers did as well. The Memorial Statue for all Chinese railway men in Canada is the official remembrance for their contributions. This project not only traces back to the history of a railway man but also presents the status of Chinese immigrants in Canada a century ago. They lived in a different culture and they hardly went back to China. The cultural dislocation was enormous at that time comparing to our present lives. The coping strategy for this type of cultural dislocation is to build up the unique Chinese-Canadian culture, where they no longer live on either Chinese’s or Canadian’s terms. ▲31
Cao Fei Cosplayers 2004 Film Still
Spiritual World of People in China Jolie Zhou
Cao Fei’s Cosplayers is a video work based in Guangzhou. It reveals the high inconsistence between the real life and the virtual life of city people. When young people play video games, they become the characters they want to be and they can also possess super power. Thus, Cao Fei turns this imaginary world into a surreal plot happening in real life. In Cosplayers, all cosplayers engage in battles on daily sciences. Afterward, they go back home and become normal people again. Throughout all these events, the mundane concerns in their lives have not changed at all; what they have done is to escape to the virtual world. ▲34
I was born in Guangzhou and I am very familiar with this lifestyle that Cao Fei has portraits in this work. Cosplayers refer to the people who play the characters on certain occasions that are often seen in animation or video game. Many of my friends have become cosplayers in Guangzhou. With limited living spaces for individuals in China, the space in the virtual world is unlimited. People seek out a place on Internet where they can escape from the mundane matters. Nevertheless, the young generation gradually loses interests in the traditional rituals and professions. There are concerns with regards to the incapability of people to deal with the daily problems. Moreover, the cultural heritage has been largely neglected by the young generation. Yet, it is the problem for every individual around the world as well.
Whose Utopia (2006) is a work concerning the concept of labor alienation. She shows the process of the product line at the beginning of the video suggesting the identical items in the factory, wherein she also suggests a metaphor for the workers. The individualities of the workers on the product line seem to be erased by the repetitive and mechanical tasks. Later she employs a surreal plot into the factory setting to revive the individuality of these workers. For Cao Fei, the surreal plot is a very crucial tool to bring the root
problems upfront, wherein the surreal elements can highlight the problems of the mundane lives.
(Top-left image) Cao Fei Cosplayers 2004 Film Still (Bottom-right image) Cao Fei Whose Utopia 2006 Film Still â–˛35
Naichen Pan As Sashimi 2015 Acrylic on Canvas
(Left) Naichen Pan Traditional Chinese Landscape as Mochi 2015 Acrylic on Canvas (Right) Naichen Pan As Noodle Soup 2015 Acrylic on Canvas
Naichen Pan’S WORK: Traditional chinese landscape as a superficial Symbol for chinese culture Jolie Zhou
This series of paintings from Naichen Pan possesses a surreal quality through the blending of domestic scenes and traditional Chinese landscape. The invasion of the foreign culture in China inevitably influences how Chinese themselves perceive what should be Chinese Culture. For example, the Chinese elements in Hollywood Cinema are almost Orientalist and symbolic. They are unreal. However, the Chinese mainstream artists or designers play around with these elements to represent China. Yet, in Naichen’s paintings, the relationship between the objecthood of the landscape and the domestic scenes strongly queries the representation of Chinese culture with different gestures.
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Special Thanks to... (In alphabetic order)
Nasrin Himada Huibin Luo Naichen Pan Vanessa Wang Jayne Wilkinson Winnie Wu
*(Cover image) Yue, Minjun. “The Sun.” 2000. New York Times, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes. com/2012/12/06/arts/06iht-rartminjun06.html. *1 (inside front page) Wolf, Michael. Photographs 06 from Portraits Made in China 1997-1998. Retrieved from http://photomichaelwolf.com/#portraits-made-in-china-1997-1998. *2 (p.11) “中国摄影家翁奋。” Photography of China. Retrieved from http://photographyofchina.com/blog-ch/ fangtan-weng-fen. *3 Michael Wolf Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wolf_(photographer). *Fig 4 (p.28) Picture of “Dongguan Yuanchonghuan Memorial Statue.” Republic of Cantonia. Retrieved from http://namyuekok.freeforums.org/2010-t3974.html. *Fig 5 (p.29) Picture of “Support Cantonese Protest in Guangzhou.” Republic of Cantonia. Retrieved from http://namyuekok.freeforums.org/2010-t3974.html. *6 (p.29) 許創彥。 “大學講師歐陽偉豪：用粗口和幽默捍衛廣東話。” The Initium. Retrieved from https://theinitium.com/article/20160810-hongkong-Cantonese/. *7 (p.33) K. Lambert. “Cultural Dislocation.” Globalisation and the Media. Retrieved from http://mediaglobalisation.blogspot.ca/2012/08/cultural-dislocation.html.