Opium debt

Opium Debt, 1839-2013 is the third and final work in the series Opium Debt. In 2011, I was invited by Guangzhou Live to research and develop a site-specific performance to launch Guangzhou Live 011. My on-going interest in postcolonialism and globalization led to investigation of the influence of British imperial trade upon the development of Guangzhou (formerly Canton). Following extensive archive research and studio practice, I 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 outcomes of the project 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 this print work documenting the project and created for the opening group exhibition of A3 Project Space.