INTRODUCTION
Organised by the Macao Museum of Art (MAM) of the Macao SAR Government’s Cultural Affairs Bureau, Above Zobeide was first presented at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia last year. It featured a large-scale installation and digital prints created by emerging Macao curator Chang Chan and young Macao artist Wong Weng Cheong. The exhibition received critical acclaim from international audiences and art critics, successfully ‘showing Macao to the world’. Now, the whole exhibition returns to Macao, presenting outstanding works to local audiences and exploring global issues in a local context. Residents and tourists alike will be able to appreciate the contemporary creations of Macao’s young artists and collectively focus on the future development of visual arts in the city.
An Immersive Experience of Virtual Realities
The exhibition draws inspiration from Italian literary giant Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, particularly the postmodern novel’s primary symbol of desire and disorientation, Zobeide. Wong Weng Cheong combines experiences from living in Macao and studying abroad, along with personal anxieties, to construct a fictional city named Zobeide. Here, grotesquely herbivorous creatures with elongated legs wander through the city’s desolate ruins, symbolising the imbalance between human civilisation and its mutations.
The exhibition further dissolves the boundaries between the audience and the artwork – hidden surveillance cameras capture the audience’s presence in real time and project them into an apocalyptic scene. Viewers shift from being ‘observers’ to ‘the observed’. Through identity displacement and spatial alienation, the exhibition blurs the lines between reality and fiction, confronting contemporary societal anxieties about existence and fluidity of identity. The exhibition prompts reflection on the identity of ‘foreigners’ in a globalised context, resonating with the central theme of last year’s Venice Biennale: ‘Foreigners Everywhere’. As a cultural crossroads for centuries, Macao provides a profound commentary on this theme.
Identity Inquiry in Dystopia
In his work Above Zobeide, Wong delves deeper into self-analysis as he explores Macao – a place historically constructed and developed by ‘foreigners’. He adopts a more objective, non-personal perspective to study and reconstruct the city’s identity. The traces of Macao within the exhibition transform into a narrative of globalisation, prompting viewers to reassess the city’s multifaceted identity and reflect on the existential crises present in contemporary society.
The exhibition invites audiences into a space that cannot be clearly defined, allowing them to experience a foreigner’s familiar-yet-alien presence in a fictional world where reality and illusion intertwine.