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Barerarerungar
12th April - 28th July 2024
OPENArchival Platform
Eric Fok
Global Identity
The Impossible Black Tulip, third episode of the GLOBAL IDENTITIES Postcolonial and cross-cultural Narrative cycle, is a project that finds its reason in the exploration of the concept of belonging. The exhibition is named after the earliest known Chinese world map that unites western and eastern cartographic views and style. Maps and identities have a deep connection: As a crucial visualization of national borders, mapping has been linked to the political construction of national identity. However this map, symbol of cultural hybridity, confuses our concept of identity and, along with its rarity and exoticism, it was called the Impossible Black Tulip. Through this exhibition and participatory actions, this event wants to contribute to the post-colonial debates on hybridity, decolonization and fluid identity. In this reagard Macau represents an unique case-study: a Portuguese colony for 400 years, after the return to China in 1999 as a special administrative region (SAR) , identity mak
The Impossible Black Tulip, third episode of the GLOBAL IDENTITIES Postcolonial and cross-cultural Narrative cycle, is a project that finds its reason in the exploration of the concept of belonging. The exhibition is named after the earliest known Chinese world map that unites western and eastern cartographic views and style. Maps and identities have a deep connection: As a crucial visualization of national borders, mapping has been linked to the political construction of national identity. However this map, symbol of cultural hybridity, confuses our concept of identity and, along with its rarity and exoticism, it was called the Impossible Black Tulip. Through this exhibition and participatory actions, this event wants to contribute to the post-colonial debates on hybridity, decolonization and fluid identity. In this reagard Macau represents an unique case-study: a Portuguese colony for 400 years, after the return to China in 1999 as a special administrative region (SAR) , identity making in Macao has been a process of incorporating instead of repressing or eliminating the identities of “the other”. How is the concept of hybridity related to belonging? Together with the local Chinese community (one of the biggest communities in the EU) and three artists from Macau, Eric FOK, Gue Jie CAI, and Ka Long WONG we will investigate the different ways we can reflect on these concepts. We will inquire as to the legitimacy of basing an identity on only certain specific aspects of local colonial history, the relationship between belonging and ownership, and finally, the relationship between the memory of an area and the “modern” capitalist appropriation of the landscape. The various anti-migratory events and the increasing success of souverainiste parties have brought to light an urgent need to analyse the historical racialised constructions of identity in order to foster contemporary debate on a more fluid concept of identity. How can we define an “identity” today?
Artistic Direction: Valentina Gensini Curating: Livia Dubon Organization: Mus.e, Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea Coordinator: Sandy Chan Interpretation Panels: Veronica Gabriele e Livia Dubon Graphic Design: Athos de Martino Sponsor: Instituto Cultural do Governo da R.A.E. de Macau (I.C.M.), the Institute Confucio Florence, Macau Visual Students Art Zone Supporters: the Camões Institute of Lisbon, the Department of Languages, Literatures and Studies Interculturali of the University of Florence and the “Fernando Pessoa” Chair Contributions: Association Chì-na, Dragon Film Festival, Permanent workshop for the Peace – District 5, Florence.
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Conceptual artist
Eric Fok is an artist born in the later era of Portuguese Macau. With his maps and his meticulous brushwork Eric explores Macau’s identity by showing its transformations, developments and postcolonial phenomenon, merging space and time in a new fascinating dimension. His works were included in “Illustration Exhibition -Bologna Children’s Book Fair (2013)”, “Art Nova100 in China”, and the Portugal Oriental Foundation Art Award and are collected by The Orient Museum (Portugal), the University of Hong Kong Museum and Art Gallery, the Macau Government Headquarters, the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macau S.A.R., and the Oriental Foundation (Macau). Website: www.behance.net/EricFok
Eric Fok is an artist born in the later era of Portuguese Macau. With his maps and his meticulous brushwork Eric explores Macau’s identity by showing its transformations, developments and postcolonial phenomenon, merging space and time in a new fascinating dimension. His works were included in “Illustration Exhibition -Bologna Children’s Book Fair (2013)”, “Art Nova100 in China”, and the Portugal Oriental Foundation Art Award and are collected by The Orient Museum (Portugal), the University of Hong Kong Museum and Art Gallery, the Macau Government Headquarters, the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macau S.A.R., and the Oriental Foundation (Macau). Website: www.behance.net/EricFok
This content is avaiable only in this archive.
