MAYDAY

NATURALISATION: exploring what it means to be British/Chinese by Anthony Key

Contributed By:

WOK/SATELLITE DISH (1996)
THREE LIONS ON A SHIRT (1996)

“Footballs coming home” is the first line to the English national football song.
SOY/KETCHUP (1997)

The word “ketchup” is derived from a Cantonese word meaning “thick tomato sauce.”
CULTURE TO GO (2002)

The artist recorded a three-day conference called Contemporary Chinese Arts in the International Arena held at the British Museum and after cut them up into eight-inch strips to represent brown soy noodles, and then placed these noodles into the new-style, microwaveable, plastic takeaway cartons. The eight ninety-minute audiotapes of the conference were transformed into eight takeaway dishes – in Chinese eating culture, eight dishes signify a banquet.
BREAD/NOODLES (1997)
BATTLE OF BRITAIN (2007)

The Chinese flags and military banners peppering this monumental table map of Great Britain (based on the original World War II Operations Room maps) carry the names of every Chinese restaurant in Britain, and are placed in all the cities, towns, and villages where the restaurants are based.

 

Return to table of contents for PRACTICES, POWER & THE PUBLIC SPHERE

Return to table of contents for Issue 2 Winter 2010

Filed Under: Art

Further Reading

THE HOLY BOOK OF THE BEARD by Duff Brenna

an excerpt from THE HOLY BOOK OF THE BEARD by Duff Brenna New American Press 360 pp. $14.95 This is no wing for an unripe wit. If these feathers flutter too swiftly for you, put this page away, read Sports or Obits, or the gluttony of Heloise, Section E, p. 5. To such-a-one who lingers over […]

IN A FIFTH FLOOR MOSCOW WALK-UP, WAITING FOR THE PLUMBER by J. Patrick Lewis

Relentlessly the week-long leak from my sink angers the Grebnikovs below me, Misha coping with joints so painful the concert violinist has forgotten how to saw a bow; Lydia banging on her ceiling/my floor, the broom handle, futile against the drip, but the rat-a-tat-tatting’s a startling imitation of a militia issue Makarov. Moscow never learned […]

An excerpt from the novel SEASON OF ASH by Jorge Volpi (translated by Alfred MacAdam)

Enough rot, howled Anatoly Diatlov. The alarm went off at 1:29 a.m. Moving at 300,000 kilometers a second, the photons passed through the screen—rendered brick-colored by the dust—pierced the air saturated with smoke from Turkish cigarettes, and, following a straight line through the control room, smashed into his pupils just before the blare of a […]

Skip to content