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"One and a Half Aliens," an exhibition at the reopened Creek Art Center, explores the meaning of identity, belonging, foreignness and how a Chinese-born Swiss national needs a visa to come back home.

 

It also features sculptures of Chinese woks turned into satellite dishes in the information-hungry information age.

 

 

The exhibition examines communications and East-West links through the works of artists Rene Zach and Luo Mingjun, both Swiss citizens and residents. But Luo was born in China to Chinese parents and acquired her Swiss nationality through marriage -- she's the "half-alien."

 

Born in Hunan Province, Luo moved to Switzerland 20 years ago. "My work talks about identity," she says.

 

For a foreigner, a passport or visa is so important, she says. "For me now holding Swiss documents, I need a visa to get back home to China."

 

She is Chinese and Swiss. "I want people to understand that identity is just on paper, it does not change the person."

 

One work features a 100-meter-long Chinese mosquito netting-like cloth embroidered with Swiss yarn. "The two materials show my thinking about the two places I call home," she says. "The material has a protective element to it."

 

However, sewn into the cloth are images or words, explaining her thoughts and feelings as she was making it. There's a mobile phone representing the running theme of communication, and the words "terrorist" and "revolt."

 

Luo also works in Chinese ink, which she calls "a link to my original heritage." But she says she does not "market Chinese culture when I am abroad. I want my work to be a somber exploration of art."

 

She uses everyday objects like a Chanel lipstick, chopsticks and jewelry as her subjects.

 

"I want to use these mundane objects in a portrait of myself. They are autobiographical," she says. "But it is funny but when Chinese people see my work, they say, 'I knew you came from Europe'."

 

 

Zach comes from the tradition of European and American minimal and conceptual art. But he sought manmade objects to express himself.

 

He concentrates on a single object, a communications antenna and has made 12 satellite dish sculptures in wood, with a metal Chinese wok as the dish. They all face West.

 

"This focuses on the hardware of communication, which is then remade in wood so it becomes a sculpture as it no longer has its original function," Zach says. "Each piece is made from a common Chinese wok, something that would be found in most homes, this is a good symbol of Chinese daily life."

 

He says this shows that communications today has become like food, "people are hungry for it."

 

In conceptual art, it is necessary to find a trick to convey an idea. The idea here is that the antenna in China receives news from space, originally from Zach's home in Switzerland.

 

In fact, Luo first showed her work along with Zach's work in Switzerland. "I wanted to bring him back to China," she says, "for his first exhibition here."

 

One and a Half Aliens

Date: March 10-April 1, 12-8 PM

Address: 101 Chang'an Rd (behind 423 Guangfu Rd)

Tel: 021-63804150

 

(Shanghai Daily March 13, 2007)