Exhibitions

If the earth was not curvature, our eastern tunes would have collided with yours uses video, sound, text and objects to explore the representation of Chinese culture in Australia and asks how the Chinese is defined in the context of Australian history. By presenting the performance made by the members of Beijing Opera clubs of Melbourne (founded in 1988) and revealing the Peking Opera costume collection at Arts Centre Melbourne (acquired in 1983), this exhibition juxtaposes two different cultural preservation practices: one is carried on by the senior group of the Chinese immigrants; the other is implemented by Australian art institutions. Through the contrast between these two practices this exhibition provokes the question: how the imagination about a diasporic past informs the narratives about Australia. This exhibition also intends to challenge the division between the folk art and the contemporary art and blur the boundary between performance art and visual art.

Image: Siying Zhou, Mrs Chan performs 'Goddess Scattering Flowers' at North Williamstown, 2023. Courtesy of the artist.