The China Project and Housework

After leaving the state library, I wandered around the corner, literally to the Gallery of Modern Art. I only had time to see one exhibition - The China Project - before they closed, but it was really worth it.

Usually I'm not really into modern art, so I don't know whether it was the subject matter or the way that it was displayed that made me really appreciate a lot of it. To start, the exhibition was about contemporary Chinese artists. In the foyer was an exhibition about personal Chinese heritage and its exploration (William Yang: Life Lines), which was an interesting insight into the displacement of people living away from their so-call 'homeland' and how you reconcile the cultural disparity between the cultures of your life to that of your ancestors.

Moving into the exhibition titled 'Three Decades: The Contemporary Chinese Collection', I was struck by the body of work by Ah Xian, which comprised of casts (in various mediums) of busts from real people. The process seemed very long and painstaking, but the results were amazing. The red lacquerware carving was really detailed and the full body cloisonné was simple and really impressive, with its motif of the lotus on the white background.

Although I really liked a lot of the other work in this exhibition, I have to make special mention of 'Utopian theatre' by Zhou Xiaohu, which was a large model in clay with hundreds of miniature clay figurines depicting international events that have been broadcast to the world by the media. They included figurines of the media too, complete with camera crews, etc. Within the installation were also videos of 'claymation'; a comment on the use of public events as mass entertainment. There was also an interactive part to the exhibition, including one where you wrote with a Chinese calligraphy brush with water onto stone, part of a performance artwork.

Overall, a really interesting and eye-opening experience. My day ended with a mostly uneventful journey to the airport, with a pretty long wait to board as the plane was delayed a bit.

There is something particularly therapeutic about mundane tasks. I spent the day mostly performing domestic tasks like laundry, vaccuuming and washing dishes.

I have found from discussions with various friends and acquaintances, seem to be tasks that people will do when procrastinating from more unpleasant tasks such as studying (probably housework is the number one form of procrastination among university students to my knowledge).

Or perhaps working with your hands and body is just a refuge from having to exercise your brain. Definitely easier in many respects.