Macau’s lost identity in focus at its Venice Biennale pavilion, an exile’s take on casino culture
- Artist Heidi Lau watched from afar as Macau’s first mega casinos ‘just suddenly emerged from the muddy swamps of Cotai’
- Her art at the Macau Pavilion in the Venice Biennale is a reaction to the big changes in her home city, which she feels have erased its history and identity
Unlike neighbouring Hong Kong’s big-budget productions, Macau’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale, which in Venice is also adjacent to its big-city neighbour’s, tends to be a quiet affair that is easily overlooked. (Macau and Hong Kong have official representation at the art fair despite not being countries.)
“The first mega casinos opened just after I left. It seemed these gargantuan structures just suddenly emerged from the muddy swamps of Cotai. That was probably the most shocking to me. But ever since then, I feel that the city has changed every time I visit,” she said at the recent opening of the Macau pavilion.
The changes have had a material impact on her family, whose small, independent perfumery was knocked out of business when large beauty chains from Hong Kong moved in to target wealthy gamblers from China.
The ceramic pieces in her exhibition, called Apparition, resemble creatures rising from a swamp. There are references to the Taoist customs that her family follow and the myths passed down by her grandmother. In a section ironically called “Learning from Casino” is a piece called People Mountain People Ocean; its title in Chinese means a crowd packed to the gills.