@Large on Alcatraz - An Ai Wei Wei Exhibition

Alcatraz Island

@Large was one of the best art exhibits I have ever visited. That isn't saying much, since I haven't visited many art exhibits. Still, I enjoyed trying to understand the hidden structure and meaning of the exhibit and there was no lack of depth to each of Ai Wei Wei's pieces! I wish I had time for a second visit to see what I could learn upon a second inspection.

The exhibition consisted of 6 pieces - In the Wind, Trace, Refraction, Stay Tuned, Illumination, Blossom, and Yours Truly. 

In the Wind - For Site Foundation

In the Wind is the first piece of the exhibition and is a beautifully colored paper dragon. The dragon is a celebratory symbol in China often associated with the emperor. As you can see from the picture above, it is a very colorful, majestic piece. 

Scales of In the Wind

The dragon is made up of individual scales, or perhaps circular cross sections is a more accurate description. Many of them just have beautiful patterns on them, but intersperse amongst the plain-patterened scales are those with a word or a quote. The scale above has a quote from Wei Jingsheng, a democracy activist in China. Other scales simply have words like "breaking", "damaging", and "disobey" artistically written across them.

The first two words I read on the scales were "breaking" and "damaging", which lead me to view the piece as something that sympathizes with the plight of dissidents. I interpreted "breaking" and "damaging" as meaning the state was "breaking" or "damaging" the rights of the people. However, as I explored the serpentine dragon more fully, I encountered words like "disobey" and my interpretation changed. The state was not "breaking" the people, it was the other way around! The dissidents were breaking, damaging, disobeying that state. 

The dragon is a celebratory symbol in China and In the Wind quickly showed me that @Large not only sympathized with the constrained state of dissidents, but also celebrated them! 

As I wandered a reflected upon this idea, I came upon an open door separating In the Wind with Trace.  I examined the door with all of its broken glass, rusted metal, and decay.

Alcatraz was first a military fort, then an army prison, and then the highest security penitentiary in the US. Many people were held here against their will. Today, however, the prison doors are rusted. The glass is broken. Free people wander the halls and wonder about what life was like under such oppressive conditions.

Refraction - For Site Foundation

Alcatraz is a metaphor for authoritarian governments. Two of Ai Wei Wei's pieces, In the Wind and Refraction, have the symbolism of something majestic being trapped in the space. However, we, the viewer, can see what has become of Alcatraz. Even though the paper dragon may seem weak against the imposing, concrete structure of Alcatraz, the dragon will eventually be released as the shackles around it crumble and decay. It may take time and hardship, but eventually all prisons turn to dust.

Trace to me seemed the most profound piece. On the surface the piece seems straightforward, and perhaps in many ways it us. It is such a large piece that it was hard for me to really analyze the small details. It is, however, the easiest piece to understand. iI shows hundreds of dissidents, past and present, who suffered oppression around the world.

Trace

What made the piece so profound to me was its ability to educate people on the plight of dissidents and how oppression is a global issue. Many millions of tourist visit Alcatraz every year and few of them go solely to visit the Ai Wei Wei exhibition. This means that many visitors stumble upon the art by accident.

Edward Snowden, front and center in Trace.

I found Ai Wei Wei's choice to put a picture of Edward Snowden squarely in front of people as they first see Trace as a very powerful state. Many people view Snowden as a traitor. Many see him as a hero. Personally I have mixed feelings and I also don't know how Ai Wei Wei feels about him. I hesitate to say he firmly believe Snowden is a hero. Instead, he recognizes the conflicting views of Snowden and  he puts him there to challenge people's perspective.

To the left of Snowden was a picture of MLK. To his right was Nelson Mandela. After chatting with the supervisor of the piece, I learned that many people were upset by placing Snowden among such great figures. To me, this conflict was the point. 

MLK, Nelson Mandela, and most other activist that we now see as heroes were not universally accepted as such when they were living. They challenged the status quo. They didn't follow the rules. They were imprisoned, exiled, or assassinated. 

Only in hindsight do we accept them as heroes. The image of Snowden represents the conflicting views society has of dissidents in the present. It provides an example of the conflicted views society had on say MLK in the midst of civil rights movement. Only in hindsight will we be able to accept or reject Snowden as a hero. Today, he provides an example to Americans of what it means to be a dissident in the present.

Stay Tuned -For Site Foundation 

I just briefly wanted to discuss one aspect of Stay Tuned. Here is a link to the website which has the entire collection of songs, speeches, and poems performed by activist across time and the globe. It is an amazing piece and I am so pleased they provided all of the songs on the website. 

The one aspect I wanted to discuss was the global nature of this exhibition. It draws attention to activists around the world. There are many different languages sang or spoken and the songs and speeches span from the early 20th century to very current Pussy Riot's Virgin Mary, Put Putin Away. My favorite so far is the first song on the website - Fela Kuti's Sorry Tears and Blood. Check it out!

Up close inside the prison cell.

One of the most striking parts of Stay Tuned to me was the realization that this art work is a byproduct of the digital age. It would have been impossible to bring such a broad spectrum of music and spoken word from across the world without digital files. Better communications are bringing societies closer together and raising awareness of the injustice in the world. 

Porcelain flowers will the sink, toilet, and tub of the psychiatric ward in Blossom - For Site Foundation

Blossom was the most challenge piece in the whole installation, which in certain ways made it my favorite : ) All the other pieces in the exhibition are very straightforward in their central message and how they interrelate to the other pieces. However, Blossom is very different!  How does a porcelain collage of flowers inside tubs, sinks, and toilets relate to a celebration of dissidents?

Other cell in Blossom

The exhibition offers one interpretation of Blossom as a reference to the Hundred Flowers Movement, which was a time in the 1950's when the Chinese Communist Party encouraged its people to speak openly about the government. As you can imagine, the party didn't like it very much when the speaking turned critical. A crack-down quickly followed.

After the history refresher, the Hundred Flowers interpretation does seem to fit. However, since many of the other pieces were multicultural, it seems strange to me that this would be so specific to China. However, the cells with water receptacles housing the porcelain flowers are scattered throughout the psychiatric ward, which may represent the flowering of critical voices in different parts of the world.

The most interesting interpretation I came up with was the idea of harmony between the different kinds of flowers. The collage is made up of big and small flowers all interwoven together. While some flowers may be larger than others, all are necessary to produce a beautiful collage. This may be a metaphor for respecting the voices of all people in a society to create harmony.

Since the flowers blossom from the bottom of drains, which are typically seen as dirty places, Blossom may also illustrate the hope and potential for something beautiful to grow from someplace dirty.

As the last artwork, Blossom gives us hope that the future may be a more beautiful place than the present.

Desk and rack of postcards in Yours Truly - For Site Foundation

Yours Truly is the last part of the exhibition, but is less of an artwork and more of a connection with the dissidents showcased in Trace. Those dissidents willing to share their address has allowed @Large to send them postcards. All visitors are encouraged to write a personal postcard to the political activists.

Yours Truly brings the interaction full circle by connecting visitors with dissidents.  For the visitor, it further enforces that the flight of these activists are real and happening right now. The For Site Foundation will handle all of the mailing procedures to send the postcards, though we can never be sure if the cards will be snatched up by the oppressive governments.

Anyone interested in seeing a professional review of the exhibition should check out Barry Willis' great review of @Large.

Thanks for reading! : )

A Salty Holiday Treat!

Beautiful Bondi Beach

To try to lighten up my blog and my experience, Hanna Groshong and Lori Bassman schemed to give me a gift certificate to a surf shop in Bondi Beach (complete with sunscreen) with the hitch that I need to write a blog post about my surf trip. Luckily there were no time restrictions on the gift because if there were, I probably would have failed. It's the end of march... Christmas was like 3 months ago....  But!  Better late than never, here is my experience (written probably 1 month ago - I just didn't get around to post it... I've got skills, right?)

Despite not being very good at it, I really love trying to surf - and this experience as no exception. I had wanted to surf in Australia, but did feel a little intimidated by the “city surf” scene. I am used to surfing in the open spaces of San Onofre, CA, but did surf around Santa Monica once. It was filled with failed attempts, people stealing my waves, and fears of bashing the heads of people in front of me. Luckily, my experience with city surfing in Sydney was much more pleasant than my experience at Santa Monica a few years ago. 

Since getting up on a surf board that isn’t twice as tall as I am still feels a bit like riding a wet fish, I’m not confident in my ability to maneuver around people who have the misfortune of being in front of me. And since no one likes getting hit with a surfboard, I like to have plenty of space. 

The day was a beautiful 30ºC (86ºF) and I would guess the waves were around 8-10 ft high. These conditions are perfect for getting tossed around and get tossed around I did. I got a 5 ft fish surfboard at Bondi Beach Surf Co and a wetsuit. I had only two hours to try to catch a wave, so I did a brisk jog to the pier where I could change. I snapped a picture of the surfboard, before grabbing it and running back onto the beach. 

Fiberglass Fish

What to do with the key to the locker where my citizen clothes were stashed proved to be a bit of a puzzle. It had a velcrow wrist strap, but one that I suspected wouldn’t last in the water. So I made like a little doggie and buried the key in the sand, making sure no one was watching me bury my treasure. I marked it with some garbage I found and headed off to master the waves. 

Here's some people mastering the waves. I was more like the people in the middle getting mastered by the waves

It was just my luck that the set was coming in, so it was quite a fight to get out there. The board wasn’t small enough to duck dive under the oncoming waves, so I had to do a turtle roll (rolling so the bottom of the board faces the sky with me under the water) to get around most of the passing waves. After probably 10 minutes which felt like an hour I had fought my way beyond the break line (the point at which the waves start breaking - which happens to be the place you want to be so that waves don’t constantly crash on you). In reality, I didn’t so much fight to get out to the break line, but rather struggled in vane to make progress until the set went out. Even though I had to wait a little while out in the ocean for the set to come in again, I got to enjoy one of the wonderful moments when the water is calm and cool, the sun is warm, and the view is amazing. 

Once the set came in again, I started trying to catch the wave. The fish board was a little less stable than I was used to, but I figured I would catch a wave and then worry about standing up. As the first few waves came in, I paddled hard to get in the right place for the wave to start pushing me, but was a bit too far out and was missing the first few waves. As I was waiting for the next one, a particularly sunburnt man ask me if my board was fiberglass. I thought maybe he wanted to know about the board to see how I liked it. I just said yes. He then replied that I couldn’t surf here. It was only for soft tops. I was a bit bemused because I had asked the people at the rental place if there were any restrictions on where I could surf and they said no. So I started to slowly paddle in.... but still trying to see if I could catch a wave.   I needed to move closer to shore anyway. After it was clear I wasn't trying that hard to paddle in, a lifeguard on an ATV with a loud speaker told me I need to come to shore. I gritted my teeth and started to actually paddle to shore.

Totally unrelated picture of some Kiteboarders. Kiteboarding is probably cooler than surfing. 

After talking to the lifeguard, I had two options: go to either end of the beach to surf with the other fiberglass boards, which didn’t seem very appealing since there were so many surfers there already, or go back to the surf shop to swap to a soft top. In the end I decided that I was more likely to catch a wave in the open space of the soft toppers, so I ran back up  the hill, to the surfshop, got a soft top, and ran back down the to the beach.

It was just my luck that during that time the set had come in, gone out, and had come back in again, so I again had to battle against the oncoming waves. Eventually I did get beyond the break line, but tried to stay a bit closer to the beach. I had a few good attempts, but time was running out. I decided to just go for it. A reasonable large (maybe 8 ft) wave was coming in and I decided to give it all I got. I got in front of it, paddled hard, paddled hard, paddled hard, and started to feel it push me along, but as I dropped down the smooth surface, the wave proved a bit too steep. The tip of my board poked into the wave and all was basically lost. In those moments, I don’t ever recall anything as I was tossed underwater and held there for a few seconds. Having been tossed around enough times, you learn to just let go. You aren’t in control of your body and just need to be patient. Eventually the wave will pass and you will surface, and I did just that.

More Bondi

Since I was in front of the break line and an onslaught of waves were coming in, I decided to just go with towards the beach and try to ride some white water instead of fighting my way past the breakpoint. I didn’t succeed in riding any white water before having to head in, but it was a lot of fun. 

Even just getting thrown around by the waves is exciting, tiring, and worthwhile. It isn’t quite as fun as actually getting up, but it is just the price that needs to be paid to enjoy the ride. Either way it was good fun!

A most special thanks to Lori for pushing me to get out on the water and for making my time in Sydney so enjoyable!  And to Hanna for putting the shackles on to write a less serious blog post. Sorry it came three months late!

My debt is repaid - I am again a free man!

And here's a sleeping Kaola

Food in China - 中国菜很好吃!

Some twisted, salted potatoes in Guangzhou.

Tons of food on a stick at the next stall.

Chicken feet turns out to be actually pretty good. It's just like eating the skin off chicken. However, I never ventured into the packaged chicken feet territory. I wanted to ship Davis, my little brother, one of these so badly because he used to collect pheasant feet after we would go hunting when he was a kid, but the post office wouldn't let me ship it!

I met Stefan and Jannie in Australia when I stayed with them in Sydney. I was lucky enough to come to China when they were visiting for the Chinese New Year.  I had traditional Guangdong food with Stefan's family. My mandarin was still really rough at that point, so all I could really say was 好吃 - tasty. So my conversation with Stefan's mom and grandma consisted of me just repeating 好吃， 好吃！

The silk worm was actually really good.

However, the earthworm quiche was not so good...

我阿姨！My aunty!

The next day we had a hot pot with sheep's brain, Stefan's sister's favorite. It wasn't very tasty....

MEGACOOKIE - I wouldn't eat it though. Probably made of saw dust.

These parakeets were not food, though sometimes it is hard to tell the distinction between food and non-food in China. This was at an animal market in Guangzhou.

These worms at the same market are food.

Sichuan beef in chili oil.

I loved this picture because it shows how crafty McDonalds is. "Let's put the ice cream outpost in front of BabyLand."

This is food. I loved visiting the Walmart in Wuhan. It has some similarities to the WalMart I know, but the basket of live frogs was not one of them.

Nor was the eel.

Walmart has loads of other seafood too!

This is the similarity to the walmat I know. Aisle and aisles of super cheap stuff. Unlike the walmart in the US, the one in Wuhan has almost all domestic products ; )

Some snacks on the train. I wasn't adventurous enough to buy this...

Scorpions! They looked super crazy because they would spear them on the stick while alive so you could watch them squirm.

However, it just tasted like crunchy oil. Not worth the $4... I was disappointed.

I didn't venture to try this, but they look super weird...

Some super cute cakes : )  This looks much less frightening to eat.

I heard duck tongue was a delicacy and I forgot to eat it the first time I had duck. I ordered a duck head 鸭头, but I think I should have went to a nicer restaurant because there really wasn't much of anything on this charred duck head. They gave me a heart plate, though, so at least it was served with love.

My host in Beijing taught me how to make Gansu noodles!  I was not very good at it, but it was super fun. He was a really good cook : )

I had pickled garlic that me made, which was surprisingly good.

This is a random dessert plate.

And a man with the dessert plate as a hat : )

My favorite sign in Hong Kong.

Delhi: Ruins, Cows, and a Tea Stall

Despite some the discontinuity, I decided to post some pictures of my last month in Delhi, India. The pictures of the Taj Mahal were just crying out to me.

Recently, I've liked to snap pictures when I enter a new place.

I arrived a few days before Mother's Day and on that night, I heard some really loud music playing outside. It brought me back to the religious festival in Taiwan. India is primarily Hindu (~80%) and while Christians only make up 2% of the populations, but I encountered quite a few while in Delhi. This group was from a church just up the road from my hotel. 

Here's some trash around my neighborhood. Waste collection is a serious problem in India. One of Mr. Modi's campaign promises was to clean up the Ganges River. It will be no small feat. A cow is munchin' on some garbage in the background.

I made some friends while in Delhi and they took me around quite a few places. It was cool to learn about their life.

This is the famous tea stall at the University of Delhi- North Campus. I thought it was really neat to see parallels across cultures. All college students have their own favorite stops. Cool to see that one of "the spots" for college students in Delhi was this tea stall. The tea was pretty good too.

Raj Ghat - Gandhi's memorial. After learning more about the history of India, I saw Gandhi in a slightly different light. He isn't quite the legend he is revered to be in the west. He was a man with his own faults and quirks. Not all India's see him in a positive light and many people disagreed with his non-violent stance during independence. That said he is still well respected in India. 

Being in India has helped me better understand what it means to be a western foreigner. Listening to this Sinca podcast helped me understand why Indians and even some Chinese people want to take pictures with me. They equate me to Hollywood movies. I am the embodiment of western culture when I am in India. It's kind of like being a celebrity. I was asked to take a picture with this girl at the Raj Ghat. In all honesty, she looks so much cooler than I do.

The start of the ruins. These are at Hauz Khas, which means.. Royal Lake I think. They are next to a big ancient reservoir used in Delhi to provide water during the dry season. Cool to see humans using rain catchment during the 1300's. 

I love the light coming through the window. I think I'm in a tomb of some sort.

 

I felt like tomb raider in the Hauz Khas ruins. Sadly, I was wearing dress shoes, so i couldn't climb on things and have adveture time. So disappointed. 

Jantar Mantar was astronomical instruments from the 1700's made by perhaps the last or second-to-last Mughal emperor. It was cool to see the faded notches and dials on the instruments. The barriers to entry into astronomy have gone down dramatically in the last 300 years.

Mo' Jantar Mantar. Sadly much of it was restricted and policed by whistle blowing guards, so I couldn't climb on everything. What I did learn was that the red color does come off on khaki pants...

Ox cart.

Gurdwara Bangla Sahib. Gurdwaras are Sikh temples. I met a few Sikh's and learned about Sikh history. Sikhism is a branch of Hinduism that started as simply a group of Hindu's following a particular guru (a Hindu priest). This particular group was persecuted by a Mughal emperor and in response the guru and followers become more militant. They broke from Hinduism in response to form their own special dress and beliefs. I stole this description from wikipedia because it explains it better than I could.

The 5 Ks are the things Sikhs wear at all times. They are:

1. Having unshorn/cut hair. This is called a Kesh. Whether male or female, a person is required to keep their Kesh covered. People usually cover their Kesh with a turban, bandana, or a scarf (Chunni).
2. A wooden comb in their hair. This is called a Kanga. This symbolizes cleanliness which is an important part of Sikhism.
3. A steel bracelet. This is for protection and physical reminder that a one is bound to the Guru. This is called a Kara.
4. Cotton underwear that does not always have to be used as underwear. This is called a Kachera. It is a reminder to stay away from lust and attachment.
5. A small sword. This is worn to defend one's faith and protect the weak. This is called Kirpan. It is only to be used in self-defense. Many of these are now welded shut.

I made some roti, Indian bread, at another Gurdwara. They provide free food for anyone and everyone. Sikhs and Hindu's volunteer their time to pay for and make the food. You need to cover your head while in a Gurdwara. I'm wearing a muslim scarf, but they didn't say thing... I'm just a foreigner : )

Mo' roti makers.

Big pots of dal (lentil gravy) to be served to the people at the Gurdwara.

This is the Red Fort in Delhi. It was the military stronghold of the Mughal emperors.

It was super cool to see a cattle heard that was moving from Rajasthan, a desert state northwest of Delhi.

These Brahma cows are very drought resistant and are often cross bred with western cows like herefords or charlolais. The sheep station that I visited in Australia had such crosses called "Drought Master". They have the drought resistance of Brahma, but can produce milk and gain weight like a hereford or charlolais. 

I can't help but show some pictures of power... This is a huge 1.5 GW natural gas power station that was built in anticipation of the huge gas reserves found off the coast of India. The investors were a bit too eager as the gas reserves never panned out, likely due to inability to extract the resource. So this likely multi-billion dollar gas station is just sitting there doing nothing. 

Another gas plant. I think this one works though... I hope.

A 10 kW system on the top of the Delhi Technical University. Kind of funny to think that these panels are producing more energy than that idle 1.5 GW gas plant. It's a lot easier to get sunshine than to get natural gas from under the ocean.

A much bigger system on the top of the World Health Organization building. Purely by coincidence, I met an electrician that installed this system. He came up to me and asked to take a picture with him. Later I met him and visited his home.

Some ruins outside the of Qutb Minar.

The Qutb Minar was built in 1200 by one of the early Delhi Sultans. After it's construction, there was to be a second Minar built that would be twice as wide and twice as tall. This one was never finished and what was constructed is shown in the foreground. 

I love the inscriptions and stone work around islamic buildings.

The minar is 237 ft tall. It's amazing that this thing has been standing for over 800 years, granted it has been repaired after various lighting strikes and earthquakes.

After a visit to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, I was walking down the stairs, but was stopped so that I didn't walk into the monkeys. I'm really not sure how four monkeys made it up to the fourth floor of a government ministry building with plenty of armed guards at the entrance.

A butcher shop in Delhi.

A baoli is an old step well used to access groundwater during the dry season. I was told that during the 1960's the water table was above the first level. Now it is far below the bottom. 

The front gate of the Taj Mahal. 

A side shot of the front gate.

Despite seeing countless pictures of the Taj Mahal, it really was an exceedingly beautiful building. I kind of expected to be underwhelmed given all the hype, but I was not.

The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum for the wife of a Mughal emperor. She died at 38 giving birth to their 14th child. They probably should have just called it good at 10.  The emperor built the Taj Mahal to construct a heaven on earth to remember his wife.

The guest house to the right of the Taj and opposite the mosque, which is a symmetrically identical to the guest house.

A shot of the front gate.

There is a myth of a black Taj Mahal that was to be built across the river as the mausoleum of the emperor himself. The emperor was never able to realize this plan (if it existed) because his son usurped his thrown. The emperor who built the Taj actually died under house arrest by his son. 

The emperor's son Aurangzeb was a pious man and had much distaste of the perceived excess of his father. He saw the Taj Mahal as a waste and there is much truth to this. Soon after the Taj was build the capital of the Mughal empire had to be shifted from Agra to Delhi because Agra was so depleted of resources. Like many great anxiety buildings, they put a huge strain on resources. 

Despite the excess, it is one of the most beautiful things I have seen and is perhaps more beautiful because it is conflicting. It was born out of a human desire of morning and strove to create perfection amongst the imperfect human world. In the process the emperor drained the empire of resources and eventually landed himself under house arrest. It all seems very human.

And this is a model micro-grid for a village.