Last weekend, I visited the White Rabbit Museum for Contemporary Chinese Art in Sydney.
Home — White Rabbit Gallery (whiterabbitcollection.org)
Below, a video Liu Chang’s installation, Chorus, part of the I Am The People exhibition, 28.06–12.11.2023.
The installation consists of three components: the clapping hands, the video of a rousing patriotic speech with attendant crowd clapping, and a small wooden box before the rows of mechanised hands on which visitors may stand.
I stood on this wooden box, and after prolonged, continuous clapping, realised the applause would not cease until I stepped down.
The thought that immediately occurred to me was that I never want to experience this feeling again. It disgusted me.
There is a scene in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer where Robert Oppenheimer addresses Los Alamos staff in response to the announcement the atomic bomb has been dropped on Hiroshima.
The sound of Los Alamos stomping their feet in patriotic applause was eerily reminiscent of the sound of the clapping hands at the exhibition. The hollow, sick feeling Oppenheimer experiences during this moment mirrored the disgust I felt.
The other pieces in the exhibition were equally insightful and thought provoking.
Photographs displayed inside a cage showing the conditions of slave labourers in North Korea. Videos of workers in a disposable lighter factory in China. Video interviews with Chinese factory workers. Videos of people in the street in China filmed unaware, slowly turning to look at the camera; rare, beautifully intimate moments. Photos of young people in a nightclub in China, the uncensored freedom expressed in their body language, one of the few places people might publicly gather without arousing the suspicion of authorities.
I don’t know if there is any other gallery in the world quite like this. I’m filled with gratitude and respect for the founders and patrons of White Rabbit.
I’m grateful at this time in particular as I commence my next major work of fiction. The questions I am seeking to ask in this work:
- Are average people capable of real change for the better?
- Are world leaders capable of real change for the better? Is it possible, given the power structures that surround and constrain them?
- What happens when people of completely different beliefs are thrown together?
I’m enjoying researching these questions, talking late into the night with friends in the never-ending game of solving all the world’s problems 🙂