Guangzhou Live invited Hunter to research and develop a site-specific performance to launch Guangzhou Live 011. Hunter’s ongoing interest in postcolonialism and globalisation led to the investigation of the influence of British imperial trade upon the development of Guangzhou (formerly Canton). Following extensive archive research and studio practice, Hunter developed speculative lines of enquiry into the Opium Wars of 1839-1842 and 1856-1860 to determine its influence in the contemporary social epistemology of both Britain and China. The site to which the work responded was the public façade of the YouYou gallery, which, since its construction in 1959, had been the official ceremony and meeting hall of the Xiaozhou village and is adorned with quotations of Mao Zedong on its walls. The project outcomes are threefold: a performance at the opening of Guangzhou Live, a correspondence art campaign involving individually mailing a limited edition postcard to and from China, and finally, a print work documenting the project exhibited in the opening group exhibition of A3 Project Space Birmingham. The work was widely reported in local and regional news media in Guangdong province. While in Guangzhou, Hunter also delivered a major lecture on his broader research project, "Curating the Eternal Network After Globalisation," to the staff and students of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.
Output Type:
Performance
Uncontrolled Keywords:
Site-specific performance, opium war, British imperial trade, Globalisation in contemporary art, China–Britain relations