Auckland
13 February 2010
Auckland Chinese New Year Festival and Market
ASB Showgrounds
Attendance: estimated 15,000 – 20,000 people
VIPs: Prime Minister, Governor General, Mayor Auckland, MP Pansy Wong (first Chinese Cabinet Minister).
Exhibition
Exhibition of MU Yu Ming's paintings along with information panels about Family Portrait project.
Focus – taking contemporary art to the public.
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Informing public about the project.
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Placing non-traditional art alongside traditional Chinese arts (calligraphy, classical painting).
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Showing contemporary art outside a gallery, to a general audience.
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Showcasing the project to Chinese and Asian audience in New Zealand's largest city.
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Having a prominent position at the largest Chinese festival – Chinese New Year/Spring Festival.
The first public engagement during the trip to New Zealand, following a week on the road in Otago, following the footsteps of the Chinese gold miners and early settlers.
Images created from the Arrowtown Chinese settlement, the Sew Hoy building and the Chinese Gardens in Dunedin were later submerged and re-painted underwater in the cool waters of lake Wakatipu. The underwater re-creation was to mirror the journey of some 499 miners' bones who were sank on a voyage to return to their homeland China. The canvas painted by Mu was taken underwater, and re-painted, leaving behind fragments of the original, and both beautiful pleasant images and a certain saddness and loss.
Auckland exhibition
The one-day exhibition in Auckland was the first exhibition of many of the works outside China, and was an exercise in taking contemporary art into public spaces, to get the attention of Chinese and New Zealand audiences about the art project, as well as showcase the project to the Chinese community in New Zealand.
While the event featured traditional Chinese arts, from calligraphy, classical painting and paper-cutting, the exhibition was more similar to an art gallery showing, with six works and two information panels.
As well as being an opportunity to show the previous work, it also attracted a number of interested people, from those associated with art galleries and art schools to descendants of the Chinese Poll Tax in New Zealand.
At the end of the day we met the very busy organiser Kai Luey, who in between hauling tables out of the buildings, gave us some apples.
It was a good day of cultural exchange and we enjoyed meeting people from the Auckland Chinese Community Centre.
We are proud to have financial support from the Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Fund.
There's a TV item:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Thousands-celebrate-Chinese-New-Year/tabid/309/articleID/141619/Default.aspx
And a link for the Auckland Chinese Community Centre:
http://www.aucklandchinese.org.nz/