Recently, Fang Di and Frank Wang Yefeng participated in the urban project of the 14th Shanghai Biennale “Emerging Curators Project 2023 – Pidgin Spectrum: Nonlinear Narratives of Multicultural”. This exhibition draws inspiration from the history of Shanghai, uses the pidgin language of “Pidgin English” as an entry point, and extends to cultural integration in the context of globalization. Show the identity recognition and cultural reflection of the artist group in this environment, and participate in the discussion of the larger historical situation. They anchor themselves at different positions on the spectrum of language evolution and edit and transform diverse vocabularies as witnesses of cultural hybridity.
Fang Di exhibited the video work “Minister”, the installation “Sepik River Ring” and the painting “Tauru”.
Fang Di visited Papua New Guinea several times for research and lived for nearly three years between 2016 and 2019. Tavurvur is an active volcano there. This work was exhibited in Fang Di’s 2019 solo exhibition “Golden Rice Bowl”. “Golden Rice Bowl” is named after a local Chinese restaurant that has been in business for more than 30 years and prepares traditional Guangdong Taishan cuisine. The restaurant is located opposite the Prime Minister’s Office of the country. The 85-year-old owner Tony Chan is the cousin of Sir Julius Chan, the second prime minister of Papua New Guinea.
Justin Tkatchenko is a member of parliament in Papua New Guinea who is currently Minister for Lands & Physical Planning. He is also the Minister for APEC affairs, a ministry created by the government to specifically prepare for the 2018 APEC summit to be hosted for the first time in PNG.
This film takes an inside perspective into the life of Justin Tkatchenko who went from being a young Australian born Botanist who fell in love with Papua New Guinea that he decided to make it home, and his journey to becoming a political leader in the country. Now, after 25 years of living and working in PNG, his achievements over the years are unique for a political leader in PNG. He had built a successful business around his love for plants and nature, became a popular TV personality widely known as ‘The Happy Gardener’, and his T.V popularity and charisma eased him onto becoming successful in his run for elections to become the elected member for Moresby South electorate in the capital city, Port Moresby. This is a remarkable story of a man who was ones a foreigner but now is regarded as a Papua New Guinean. And not just a Papua New Guinean- A leader.
The golden ring is designed by Justin Tkatchenkode, the Minister of Lands & Physical Planning. The origin of the pattern on its surface is from the aboriginal masks along the Sepik river basin. Through the six different inlaid gemstones, it shows the colors of Papua New Guinea.
Frank Wang Yefeng’s video installation “The Levitating Perils” also participated exhibited in the 14th Shanghai Biennale urban project “Emerging Curators Project (ECP) 2023 – Pidgin Spectrum: A Nonlinear Editing Possibility of Culture”.
At the same time, his video installation work “Moscow Has Nice Weather” created during the 2020 epidemic displayed in the opening exhibition “A Way of Crossing Space” at the Levant Art Gallery.
The Levitating Perils delves into a history of Eurocentric representation of Asia as a threat to the “West.” The project discloses and interrogates a racial incarnation – a “vicious” octopus that consistently appears in Western documents. Using a playful aesthetic strategy, the project deconstructs the imposed racial signifier and pounds on the question of “Peril to whom.”