The Utopia Group in the context of Globalisation

by Gu Zhenqing

In 1843, Scottish Missionary James Legge arrived in Hong Kong and became the first principal of Yinghua College in Hong Kong. During the almost 30 years that he spent in Hong Kong, he translated numerous Chinese classics, which he called the ‘Bibles of China’, into English, including Four Books and Five Classics and Tao Te Ching. In 1876, Legge was appointed the first Professor of Sinology at the University of Oxford. He then lived and worked in Oxford until he died in 1897. At the time of his death, he was a respected sinologist in Europe and was considered to be a ‘Western Confucian’ by Chinese academic Wang Tao. His contribution to sinological research in Europe is incomparable.

From July to September 2009, Chinese artists Deng Dafei and He Hai (the Utopia Group) were invited by Deveron Arts to be artists-in-residence to celebrate the Scottish sinologist. They travelled many miles to Legge’s birthplace—Huntly, Aberdeenshire, Scotland—and developed the residency project Palace of Puzzle. In their 3-month period of residency, the artists engaged local resources and programmed 3 projects. They launched a treasure hunt that involved local residents, created charcoal drawings with which to set up a contemporary installation in the house where Legge and his family used to live, and, at the end of the residency, held a successful parade involving hundreds of local residents. By the time they left Huntly on 30 September 2009, people in the small town considered them to be exceptional Chinese artists and art critics considered them to be internationally experienced artists with globalising potential.

Legge’s journey to China, and Deng and He’s journey to Scotland, accomplished a cultural exchange across a span of 100 years.

Legge came to China with mission: he studied the Chinese classics in order to understand the moral rules of Chinese people, including their thought, religions, lifestyles, and politics, but the ultimate aim of his studies was to spread the Gospel of Jesus.

Historically, China and Britain have been the cores of two very different cultural circles (Kulturkreis), and the influence of their cultures has shifted along with the development of both imperial powers. The earlier modernisation of Europe and its colonisation resulted in aggressive cultural expanding to, and assimilation of, other cultures in the world. The European-centralist attitude towards cultural conflicts created misunderstanding, while the experiencing the other culture and effort to understand came much later than they should have. Asian culture, including Chinese culture, was seen as a ‘worse’ culture, and the phrase Yellow Peril was born from this prejudice. Legge came to China around this time and entered this social context. He was one of the very few British at the time who saw Chinese people as part of his own peer group. The Missionaries’ activities were greatly influential in both Europe and China. Missions, as a typical cultural export, was Legge’s principal job. However, he, along with Robert Morrison and other missionaries, travelled around the country, built schools and hospitals, opened publishing houses, and translated all sorts of books into Chinese; all of these activities promoted Western culture in China. The translated European classics and documents showed Chinese people something different, and offered them a more global vision.

Legge spent most of his off-hours translating Chinese classics, and this work eventually became his job and specialty. He was one of the very first people to introduce Chinese classical thinking and values to the English-speaking world.

Over 100 years ago, Wei Yuan’s Map Journal of the Oceanic Nations disproved the Hua-Yi distinction (Sinocentrism) in Chinese cultural values and encouraged Chinese people to learn about the West. The journals and diaries of Chinese travellers also gave Chinese people a picture of Europe. Merchant Lin Zhen recorded in his Draft Journal of the Western Ocean what he experienced in Europe and America as early as 1840. However, one of the major contributors of early cultural import was Legge’s good friend, academic Wang Tao. He travelled to Europe in 1867 and published Journal of France, Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Chinese scholars had the eager to learn concerning the aggressive cultural expansion of Europe, and this attitude was becoming ever stronger. The wide acceptance of Wang Tao’s political theories in contemporary China also proved that the idea of learning from the West was prudent at this time.

In 1867, Gu Hongming went to Scotland and began his 14 years of studying in Europe. After Legge, Gu, who spoke 8 or 9 European languages, translated The Great Learning (大學), The Doctrine of the Mean (中庸), and The Analects of Confucius (論語) in Four Books. He published his first book in English, The Story of a Chinese Oxford Movement, in 1909, followed by The Spirit of the Chinese People in 1915, with the aim of introducing the Chinese culture and spirit to Europeans. These books were greatly influential in Germany, Britain, and France, and have helped to promote respect for Chinese culture in Europe. In very different ways, Wang Tao and Gu Hongming tried to build communication and understanding between Chinese and Europeans.

One hundred years later, many generations after Wang Tao and Go Hongming, Chinese artists Deng Dafei and He Hai travelled all the way to Scotland to communicate their ideas and their dream of Utopia through their artworks. What faced them were not the differences between East and West, history and contemporary society, modern and postmodern, but the globalised context.

Deng and He first collaborated in their artistic practice in 2008, calling themselves the Utopia Group. Since then, they have undertaken a series of art projects. Instead of showing their works in art galleries, they have transformed public and private spaces by developing the Family Museums project, which has been influential in both the contemporary art scene and the general public in Shanghai. In September 2008, the Utopia Group started to recreate the project in different locations and experiment in order to validate the theoretical base of Family Museums by changing its physical context. The first experiment was in Palazzo Frisacco in Tolmezzo, Italy. They aimed to bring art out of the gallery context, move it across boundaries, and throw it into the context of the general public by constantly changing locations and spaces and breaking down the walls of art museums and the physical forms of art. By recreating Family Museums, they have ventured even farther across the boundaries between nations, ethnicities, and cultures and located their work in the context of globalisation. With the Palace of Puzzle project in Scotland, which is influenced by the idea of Utopia of Art from Family Museums, the artists responded to the historical, cultural, and social context of Legge’s birthplace and produced an exciting new creation.

In Legge’s former house, the Utopia Group created 16 charcoal drawings based on his life experience, including a fantastical combination of a train and a church; portraits of historical figures like Wang Tao, Hong Xiuqun, etc.; and portraits of many regular people in China. The realistic presentation of the real people and objects were eventually integrated with the artists’ surreal interpretations to provide the audience with a subjective picture of history. The drawings covered almost every wall in Legge’s house and transformed this historic site into a contemporary installation. Since the industrial revolution and the modernisation of Europe, the communications and conflicts between different cultures have caused a chaos of understanding and misunderstanding. Today, the issues Legge faced over 100 years ago have been rediscovered and exhibited in the form of visual art by Chinese artists Deng and He. The Utopia Group intentionally used this specific time in this specific location to build a visual palace of collective memory and amnesia, hypothetical individuals and history. Reproduced by artists, the house of Legge has been transformed into a Family Museum in another place.

The parade that was planned and organised by the artists happened in Huntly on 26 September 2009. It was produced like Chinese funeral for Legge 111 years later. Led by Deng and He and the large paper boat they built on the shoulders of local young people, hundreds of local residents dressed themselves in white and walked around the town to River Deveron, where the paper boat was burnt to mark the final celebration. This parade might be among the performances by Chinese artists in a Western country that has involved the most members of the public. In the parade, people from different backgrounds showed different interpretations and understandings; secondary school students saw the parade as a carnival, while local Christians took it as a celebration of religion. The misunderstandings occurred just as the Utopia Group had expected, and the Palace of Puzzle showed the process of constant amnesia and the rebuilding of memory.

The Utopia Group are not idealists in the context of globalisation; their exploration lies in reality. By creating artworks, they explore the thinking of the idealists in history and discover the elements of ideal society that already exist or might occur in modern society. They aim to continue the spirit and dreams of Utopia to improve our modern society. In this way, they are responding to and communicating with Legge across time and space. The Utopia Group didn’t simply sell the symbols of Chinese culture to Westerners or replant what they had done in the past; instead, they used the opportunity of residency to research James Legge and experience Scottish society and culture. And, most importantly, they involved local residents in the creation of their artwork. They developed this large-scale, socially engaged art project by using local press, directly contacting the local population, running different workshops, and eventually making an unforgettable impression on the town with the parade. The creativity and engaging nature of their experiment is undeniable in both China and Britain.

Since the economy has developed rapidly in China over the last few decades, some Western countries have started to learn from China. Now, it is not uncommon for British artists to come to China for inspiration or cultural exchange, and Chinese artists are frequently invited to exhibit and live in Britain. Facing the idea of international communication, artists have realised that replanting works from one geographical place to another is no longer effective, as the works out of context are often misunderstood and misinterpreted. Artists have started to talk and think more about cultural and social context and, while it’s not easy to achieve a global understanding, artists have learnt to work by responding to different contexts. Deng and He’s project in Huntly, the Utopia Group, is an example of Chinese artists successfully responding to a Scottish context.

In the context of international communication, the impact of globalisation on traditional and historical culture is inescapable. Everywhere in the world, traditional cultures have renewed and updated themselves to become a global version that is sold to the world. Chinese and British artists are no exception; every artist is trying to find a way to survive in the global environment and achieve success in an international context. They have put the anxiety and illusion of traditional cultural roots behind them and begun to strengthen their opinions. This will lead people to think independently about the originality of different cultures and conflicts and eventually look for a solution for the future. Individual creativity or cultural character—which is the cultural root of the Utopia Group’s Family Museums project? This is an old question. In an era of globalisation, where does your heart call home? This is the question that the Family Museums project tries to answer.

With the support of Curator Claudia Zeiske, the Director of Deveron Arts, the Utopia Group executed its plan of cultural translation in collaboration with the residents of Huntly. The plan went increasingly smoothly over the 3-month period of residency. The boom of ‘Sino-mania’ in the international contemporary art scene allowed Deng and He to rediscover the forgotten life and experience of the great sinologist Legge, and revealed him in the context of globalisation. Instead of presenting the old stories of Legge, Wang Tao, and Gu Hongming, the artists explored their cultural roots in the era of globalisation. When the assimilation of cultures becomes ever stronger, artists who rely on their cultural roots lose their inspiration. The direction towards which contemporary art moves is without geographical borders, without concepts of native or foreign or shifting contexts; it’s about the independent creativity of artists. Although responding to the culture in different geographic locations is a classic practise in contemporary art, artists will have to face the problem of self-interpretation in an international context. If you do not interpret your ideas, they will be lost due to misinterpretation; they will lose their uniqueness and thus become meaningless. Therefore, by communicating their ideas through works, and interpreting these ideas to different cultural languages and different contexts, artists will have to identify the uniqueness of their ideas. As long as artists keep on creating and thinking independently, the ideas, theories, and values they try to communicate will possibly became an important part of history. The Utopia Group’s journey from China to Scotland extended their Family Museum project, but there is no doubt of their uniqueness. Both projects engaged the general public and communicated the artists’ remarkably original ideas; however, the Palace of Puzzle project is brand new and distinctively different in terms of content, methods, and ideas. By tracing Legge's own cultural journey, the Utopia Group created a new platform and a new space for independent creativity in the cultural communication between China and Scotland. There’s no home or away for the Utopia Group; they can build their family museums anywhere. In all the world, anywhere could be home.

Where will the artists' next home be?