Peach Blossom Land
September 2016, Mei Le
Two years ago, I was impressed by the United States Permanent Residence Card, since the beholder, Sophie, is my very good friend. Sophie and I met in 2003 while she was having her internship at foreign-capital enterprise; after that she worked in Consulate and then furthered her studies in the United State. This tiny name card bears her bitters and experiences in ten years, it is not as easy to get as a public transit card.
This inspired me to make a work about Permanent Resident, to make it more interesting, I injected Chinese element in order to provoke thinking and discussing. I knew Mr. Tao Jun back in 2005, who is descended from China famous poet Tao Yuan Ming. Mr. Tao studied and residence in United State since the 80’s; earned his first barrel after graduate; bought a great property in California and is now enjoying his munificent retired life. As the name of Peach Blossom Land is easy to extract from my memory, given my acquaintance with Mr.Tao Jun, so this is how Peach Blossom Land Permanent Residence Card pop out.
The very beginning of Peach Blossom Land Permanent Residence Card is referenced from United States Permanent Residence Card, I replaced the icon into Chinese classical elements. Untill one day I met a friend who works in the United Nations. United Nations stands in neutral position but United States green card version of the Peach Blossom Land Permanent Residence Card has a clear subjective tendency. Therefore, for the purpose of proliferating of my work, I gave up this original version and started to create a paper version that we are holding today. I started my study in the history of Peach Blossom Land, relationship between art and public, plus design for the whole project and the website of Peach Blossom Land.
I belief in the existence of multidimensional space, not only my personal experience has relationship with this belief but also science has proofed the existence of it. Every generation has different definition towards the idea of Peach Blossom Land, but they are all pointing to the desire of that generation. Science fiction, faith and mystery have become habitat of human souls since our life flooded by internet and information. Peach Blossom Land is a conceptual artwork, imitating multidimensional space: creates artificial character, interacts with three dimensional world. This piece of artwork presents in photograph, videograph, installation and performance and other form of multimedia.
I met eight ambassadors in different occasion and got in touch with 21 national embassies in Beijing over the past year. I learnt the operation rules of government agencies, sensitivity on topic and different thinking made by cultural differences.
Robert Rauschenberg mentioned that art can change the world, but art do not have practical function as land property or car, it is kind of illusory, it lacks solid proof. That’s why the art lover is valuable and rare. As Hans-Ulrich Obrist said that art is the most challenging and interesting domain, you can try and examine your imagination under borderless territory.
Future, nothing is impossible.
Translated by Xiangyi Wong and Joseph Lai