Enter the Fortress: Play well, Eat well, Sleep well is a three-part sculptural installation whose title refers to a colloquial Chinese phrase describing the fundamental components of a happy life. From the commercial to the residential, individual scenes explore the different sectors of the urban-industrial complex. Comprised of ready-mades and assembly kits, the models are pushed beyond their intended functionality to unravel the ways in which they attain their meaning.

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Displayed in a linear formation, the relationship between the parts operates on the principle of ‘borrowed scenery’, a framing device in Chinese landscape design which incorporates external landscapes into interior compositions. As a parallel to the proliferation of foreign landmarks and ‘themed’ residences in Chinese cities, the work considers how architectural styles become signifiers of cosmopolitanism and class, as the politics of taste in a geopolitical framework embodies the power relations of transnational capital.

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For full installation see: https://salon.io/meitao-qu/enter-the-fortress