As the groundbreaking exhibition Parallel Realities: Asian Art Now, art from the 3rd Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, draws to a close across Blackburn, The Bigger Picture is offering Manchester audiences the opportunity to view two of the most significant film & video works featured in this exhibition. Over the last month selected works from Parallel Realities have played on the Big Screen as part of C21 – a year long cultural and community arts event in Blackburn with Darwen that has supported the exhibition of many works that, until now, have never been shown outside of Asia.
Last but certainly not least, screening over the next week will be two beautiful black and white films, Chen Chieh-jen’s Bade Area, 2005, and Yang Fudong’s Liu Lan, 2003.
Taiwanese Chieh-jen’s new work, Bade Area is focused around a small Taipei town of the same name. In the work the artist invites labourers in the area to appear in the work in order to present personal histories and memory. Their story in inextricably tied in with Bade Area’s exclusion from the overwhelming flow of globalization.
Liu Lan, the work of Chinese artist Yang Fudong, is the artist’s interpretation of a popular Chinese folk song. The story is based around a young man from the city and a country girl traveling together on her small boat.