[curatorial.net] Far West Trading Company

[Tom Trevor]

Dear List

Prior to tomorrow's Curatorial Network seminar at Arnolfini I thought it
might be helpful to briefly introduce the Far West project. Please feel
free to comment. 

Best wishes,

Tom

 

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The Far West Trading Company is an international exchange project
curated by Lu Jie and Tom Trevor, and produced in partnership by
Arnolfini (Bristol) and the Long March (Beijing), with parallel
context-based projects produced by Vitamin Creative Space (Guangzhou)
and Relational (Bristol).

 

First manifestation: 21 June - 31 August 2008, Bristol, UK

 

The economic centre of the world has shifted to the East. The distant
lands once described by a Western empire as the Far East have rapidly
become the manufacturing engine at the heart of a new global economy.
Globalisation has transformed our cultural geography as well,
super-ceding the old colonial landscape of nation-states and continental
differences to replace it with a universal terrain of consumerism and
trade. The exotic fantasies of 'otherness' once projected onto the
Orient by an un-self-conscious Occidental empire now only serve to
describe the short-sightedness of such a sedentary world-view. The new
conditions of mobility and exchange require a greater degree of
self-criticality to enable reciprocal understanding of cultural
difference as well as inter-connectedness. 

 

In focusing on international exchange, the first intention must
therefore be to reflect upon one's own relationship to this broader
cultural scene, as well as our implication in the new conditions of
global economics. Ultimately the point of exploring so-called
intercultural relations is to unpack one's own particular histories and
traditions in a wider social and historical context. Of course the
process of trade and exchange has always intermingled different cultural
traditions, infiltrating even the most myopic 'mono-cultural' mindset.
The task is to make this process of cross-fertilisation explicit so as
to reveal underlying shared histories.

 

The cultural context of 'Middle England' for example, which is seemingly
built around a singular homogeneous world-view, is in fact entirely
hybrid, with every aspect of people's daily lives imbued with different
histories from all around the world. In terms of Chinese traditions for
instance, one has only to think of paper, tea, rice, flowers, fireworks,
porcelain, martial arts, Chinese food, etc, to begin to recognise the
extent of this cross-cultural influence, not to mention the direct
relationships brought about by globalisation, such as the manufacture of
high-street clothing and all manner of everyday items from toys to
household goods.

 

In order to explore the new relations between East and West, through
cultural exchange, The Far West project will adopt the model of a
trading company. This will take the visible form of a web-site and
on-line shopping service, as well as a gallery-based supermarket and
mail-order catalogue. As with Chinese tourist 'museums', part of the
building-based presentation will include the manufacturing process
itself, with a factory section for participation in production.
Context-led, participation projects 'off-site' will also be developed in
the city.

 
Tom Trevor
Director
 
Arnolfini
16 Narrow Quay
Bristol BS1 4QA
United Kingdom
 
Telephone: +44 (0)117 917 2300
Fax: +44 (0)117 917 2303
http://www.arnolfini.org.uk <http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/> 
 
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