Made at Home in China

With globalization, Chinese society underwent rapid changes during the “Reform and Opening-Up” period, especially with the widespread use of the term “Made in China.” This term led to changes in visual habits, particularly in the landscapes of some major Chinese cities, such as quickly built skyscrapers and modern, attractive urban scenes. While these landscapes may reflect societal change, I believe they remain superficial. What is more crucial is the “internal” transformation. What is internal? It refers to changes in people’s concepts of survival and their ways of living. Therefore, I spent three years focusing on how these shifts in survival concepts influenced behavior in four of China’s most prominent cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, (which we now call “Bei,shang,guang,shen”), and recording them

If we were to document the overall changes in life concepts and lifestyles, the scope would be too broad for a comprehensive record. Therefore, I focused on specific changes and developments in areas once considered taboo by traditional Chinese customs and “socialist revolutionary” consciousness. The work includes changes in sexual awareness and behavior, involving the ethics of both tradition and revolution. It also depicts the resurgence of local religious consciousness, though the damage from revolutionary-era consciousness on religious beliefs is still visible. The rapid rise in daily material living standards brought changes in consumption patterns, as well as major changes in entertainment activities. These shifts reflect the entanglement of “revolution” and “post-revolution,” as well as the fusion of traditional Chinese and Western modernist cultures. Most of these activities happened indoors (at home) and were not appropriate for public display at the time.

This screening is part of Nostalgia (Ruins?), the second chapter of the film program Queer Strategies and Tentacles, curated by Rosa Barotsi and Zairong Xiang, and unfolding in eight chapters between November 25th, 2024 and March 2, 2025, with the films of each chapter streaming for two weeks.

For more information, contact program@e-flux.com.