Gordon Cheung
Great Wall of Sand, 2017
Financial Times stock listings, archival inkjet, acrylic and sand on linen
200 x 450 cm (triptych)
78 3/4 x 177 1/8 in.
78 3/4 x 177 1/8 in.
Copyright the artist
'Great Wall of Sand' interweaves ancient cartography, 3D Google maps and Chinese plans for the One Belt One Road initiative in a spatially complex composition combining past, contemporary and future...
'Great Wall of Sand' interweaves ancient cartography, 3D Google maps and Chinese plans for the One Belt One Road initiative in a spatially complex composition combining past, contemporary and future mapping of geopolitical power dynamics. The floating islands depicted are artificial, controversially built in the 2010s by the Chinese by dredging up coral in the South China Sea as part of a strategy to create a new maritime silk road, claiming ownership of this dispute naval corridor. Cheung’s use of maps in the construction of these compositions draws our attention to the principle established in Boetti’s 'Mappa' series – that our understanding of the world’s geography is itself entrenched in political ideology.