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 IMPOSTER by Mark DeCarteret

will stop at nothing, singling out his thinnest of existences as if it sifted out the depths of his dreams— what’s authentic never netted, caught-onto, stepping out onto sets, so unfit and oft petrified (where the past awaits like a walk-on on strike) dressed in less and less, at best a towel or pelt— selves […]

Scarcity and Other White Lies
by Ilse Hogan Griffin

We—white folks with financial privilege—are bloated with excess and resistant to messages of our own abundance. Scarcity, the quality or state of being scarce, means, or should mean, a legitimately low supply, not enough of something. Scarcity, legitimate and illegitimate, drives and modifies behaviors. The scarcity myth, which often seems inherent in white people, especially those with considerable […]

After a Phone Call From My Daughter
Cindy Veach

Somehow the sapling bears it.   Bears it and beautiful. Doubled over with its load   of fresh snow. All things being in its favor today—   velocity of the wind, water content of the flakes—   today’s storm will not break it. But how close to the edge, the snap, the crack?   What […]

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