Cao Fei is known for her works that chart the breakneck urbanisation, China’s widespread internet culture, capitalism, environmental changes and social flux of China in the 21st century. By mixing social commentary, pop culture, references to surrealism, and documentary, reproduction images of props and paraphernalia she captures the rapid social and cultural transformation of contemporary China and highlights the impact of foreign visual influences, for example from the United States and Japan.
My City is Yours showcases the artist’s key works from the past 20 years, as well as newly commissioned works that explore China's deep ties to Australia. It is an invitation into a chaotic world of neon, street dance and pop music; a city both familiar and warped, real and virtual.
The design concept of Evi-o Studio was driven by the desire to create an object of futuristic optimism, crafted to represent Cao Fei’s belief and to blur the language of print and digital aesthetics. Every typeface chosen, icons created and any decorative aesthetics are representations of the worlds the catalogue is trying to represent: Cao Fei’s virtual worlds, the dilapidating dormant Sydney China Town and the emotive spaces in between through the lens of the artist. The expressions are delivered through cohesions of graphics, materiality and content curation.
The materiality of the publication borrows the format of a Chinatown phone book but encased in a contemporary metallic foil cover with book edges printed to work with the covers, creating almost a digital-looking codex, resulting in a juxtaposing of the familiar and the new.
Graphics were designed to mesh Chinatown aesthetics, early Y2K and Cao Fei's version of Utopia. Print grids were utilised together with digital behaviors, resulting in a multi-layer reading experience, much like the artist's approach to her art. The package exudes romance, nostalgia, reality, hope and possibilities.
Published in association with the 2024/25 exhibition at Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sidney.
