Meet the Maker: Cao Fei
COSplayers are costume players – fans of Japanese manga comics who dress up as their favorite characters. Guangzhou video and installation artist Cao Fei depicts these surreal characters against mundane urban backdrops in her new show at Para/Site. Elaine Chan asks her what’s up with kids today in China.
HK Magazine: What do you think of spending thousands of dollars on a costume to live in a fantasy world?
Cao Fei: To make a dream you need a budget. What is fantasy in this so-realistic world, anyway? I am trying to discuss many issues in the rapid development and expansion in Chinese cities under globalization; like the dilemma of individual existence. The Cosplayers are the youth growing up during the 20 years of rapid Chinese development. I try to approach an understanding of the relationship between their life, their attitudes, their family and the cities they live in. How do they deal with this urgent reality as an alienated costume player?
HK: One of your Cosplay exhibitions, the one in Amsterdam, featured obscene graffiti. How is that related to Cosplay?
CF: Amsterdam, for me, is obscene and I thought the Cosplayers in Amsterdam were also obscene. Cosplay characters come in different varieties, including the obscene, the naïve, the ferocious, the transvestites – you can be anyone you want.
HK: You made a video in China called “Give Me a Kiss,” in which a man kisses everyone that walks by. Why did you stage such a situation?
CF: I found that man on the street. He dances everyday without music, and always sends kisses to people, and he’s happy in his own little world. The street and the lighting from the car are like his stage. Now his space has disappeared because of a big apartment building and he’s lost his little paradise in the city. In China, people don’t have any public space – spatially and mentally. Life is all hidden away and where the man used to dance, you can’t do anything anymore.
HK How did people react to being kissed? Were they angry?
CF: They said they felt funny and strange. And presumed he was a madman. But he’s not. His emotions are not like the usual Chinese emotions. He just enjoys his dancing and gives his love to everybody.