This is the view out my window right now, of the houses and market below the apartment building on Xihua Lu in central Guangzhou. We flew in to Singapore from Melbourne, where we ‘slept’ on the airport couches for 6 hours after a brief stint in towards the city, somewhere called Ali Jihuan. We then flew to Hong Kong where we met up with a friend, and took the train into Guangzhou.
We are planning to contact Vitamin Creative Space to co-ordinate a series of short interviews with artists living and working here in Guangzhou – We will be asking them about what its like to be an artist here. The output will be a video to tour New Zealand. An installation may also take place, but unsure of the logistics of this just yet. As far as here in China goes, we may be taking more of a documentary stance, due to the nature of how art is viewed here, and some issues with accessibility, and not being from here. This in itself is very interesting. Back in New Zealand/Aus, we may bring back a bit of Guangzhou along side the interview work.
Our experience here has been privvy to a lot of local knowledge and sights – as we are staying with a local family. We have been to temples, fruit plantations, ancient villages, a factory in a rural zone (where I think we were the first white people the girls in the local supermarket had seen before), local street cracker displays, plenty of Yum Cha, crazy driving and late night city walks. It’s amazing here, loud, vibrant, colourful, harsh, generous, on the edge, chaotic, working, constantly moving and alive.
