想我 / Xiang Wo / Miss me, magazine pages
human hair, embroidered
caps, jewelry, wood
carton board, LED signs, timer, 212 x 185 x 192cm
Exhibition view, Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Shanghai
PR China, 2024
Exhibition view
Exhibition view, detail
Every five minutes the neon light turns on.
Duration 30 seconds.
During my residency at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel I found Shanghai as
a city of a unique blend of Western and Chinese culture where the past,
present, and future merge.
The rapid modernization of the city, reflected
in its iconic skyscrapers on the one hand and a fully digitized system that
allows everyday life to be managed almost exclusively with a smartphone
on the other, is also accelerating
the isolation of individuals.
In cafés, couples sit opposite each other, each scrolling through their own
feeds
while young people in bars mainly use their TikTok or WeChat channels
instead of enjoying themselves together. Everyone is an influencer, and the
streets are full of people producing new stories day and night.
The title "Xiang Wo - Miss Me” is a reference to an artwork by the Chinese artist
He An from 2008. His work “Xiang Ni – Miss you”, made from stolen Chinese
neon signs, referred to the many Chinese building workers who had to leave
their home and family to earn a living far from their families building up
the new China, the new Shanghai. Now in 2024 we all miss each other,
and we all miss ourselves - lost in a hall of mirrors of our self-created digital world.