Artwork

Floating City (2021)
Installation
Dimensions variable

Artwork Description:

In keeping with the Biennale’s theme of “Gastronomy,” I decide to assemble traditional food containers into a “boat” that carries both the history of Macao’s past as a fishing village and Portuguese expedition, also a vessel that passes on the legacy of Macao’s gastronomic culture. Portuguese culture has been an integral part of Macao for centuries, and it remains relevant to this date. As the saying goes, “food is the heaven for the people,” Macao is branded by the UNESCO as the “Creative City of Gastronomy,” every bite of the food you have in this city—be it local Cantonese or Macanese cuisine—is uniquely the taste of Macao.

These “boats” are distributed randomly on a horizon, reimagining a tranquil, bygone scenery of the fishing boats of Macao and Portuguese merchant ships on the surrounding waters. The “boats” are covered with a layer of clay, which stems from the artist’s years of experiment with clay and also recalling his childhood memory of witnessing the mud that emerges from the falling tide on the Sai Van shoreside. After he moved away from home, he slowly realized that the smell of moist soil suffused in the air is the unique scent of his hometown’s sea. For the artist, this is the true native soil, and he titled this work Floating City.

Courtesy of the artist

 

location: Macao Contemporary Art Center - Navy Yard No.1
23/07/2021~03/10/2021