Chinalian: A cartographic self portrait of imagined and real consciousness and culture
Artist/researcher:
Dr Maggie McCormick
Chinalian is a visual map through which McCormick investigates what it means to be ‘Australian’ in a contemporary connected and urbanised world. The imagery draws on Zheng He’s 15th century navigational maps, a disputed 17th century map, a painting of the Ming Dynasty Yongle Emperor (Zhu Di), together with contemporary maps, texts and photographs taken by McCormick in Beijing while on a Red Gate Gallery residency. The fragmented montage incorporating photography, text and drawing references the review and re-assemblage of difference to create new cultural maps. This visual research draws on her ongoing research into the relationship between contemporary art practice and urbanisation, urban consciousness and contemporary cultural concepts.
In Gateway: Context, translation, place & displacement, a Meridians Project, 15 April – 23 May 2011, exhibition at the Museum of Australian Chinese History, Melbourne.
Researchers/artists from RMIT University, Melbourne and the East China Normal University, Shanghai, building on a first exhibition held in Shanghai, May 2010.
