Art
A place in the city
by Tze Ming Mok
Does Auckland need a Chinatown?
In a preparatory Triennial roundtable late last year, the founder of China’s Long March art collective was making ironic finger motions around big-ticket items that marked cities as “world class”. A “Biennale”, Lu Jie mused, a “Chinatown”. Auckland was not quite there on either count, and those weren’t quote marks he was making; his thumb was rubbing against his index and middle fingers, making the all-encompassing frictional sign for fat cash.
Bowled to make way for Aotea Square, Auckland’s original Greys Ave Chinatown has never been definitively replaced. Taking on this absence for AK07, the Long March have launched the No Chinatown campaign, in collaboration with two local artists – provocateur Daniel Malone and Malaysian-born multimedia fantasist Kah Bee Chow. The slogan either alerts us to the fact that we have No Chinatown or demands No Chinatown – whichever you prefer.
Over the next few months, the project will kookily mimic the campaign and controversy over the proposed waterfront “National Stadium” for the Rugby World Cup, complete with nonsensical survey methods, an architectural competition to design a Waterfront Chinatown, a talkback radio-fest, an artist’s impression mock-up wall, a promo video and a protest march. It’s already been mistakenly portrayed as a serious architectural proposal with “Chinese community backing” on One News.
At last week’s Lantern Festival the No Chinatown stall was flooded with thousands of curious Chinese eager to share their thoughts. “Do you feel that Auckland needs a Chinatown?” the survey asked. “Yes! We should have a Chinatown!” a little boy asserted, slapping his completed survey on the table. He envisaged “a centre to educate people about Chinese culture.”
A recent Mainland migrant wrote in Chinese, supporting a place in the city that would raise respect for his marginalised community and for China; meanwhile, a prominent Old Generation Chinese community leader believed a newly built Chinatown would segregate, stereotype and marginalise, writing that “in the 21st century an artificially created (as opposed to an organically grown) Chinatown is such a retrogressive idea”.
People wondered if the idea was anti-Chinese and, if so, why the stall was staffed by Chinese. An academic offered to rewrite the intentionally haphazard survey so that it made sense. Pansy Wong turned up after all the surveys had run out.
As the festival crowds escalated, the artists were overwhelmed by the scale of sincere community response. Said Chow of the initial art-stunt style, “We were actually genuine, but the response was more genuine. We have to respect what people have given us.”
In a call and response from the Lantern Festival main stage, a hyped-up crowd roared in favour of a Chinatown, quelling any potential opposition.
But ultimately, “our task is to make that more complex”, says Long March executive director David Tung, “to bring out these contradictions, instead of saying: this is Chinatown, now we’re multicultural, now we’re international, now we’re …” and he pauses to check his vocabulary, “a vibrant and dynamic world-class cultural-slash-business destination”.
The idea of “Chinatown” is a “platform for the idea of self-determining one’s identity in relation to place,” says Malone. Humming along with the resonances of the tino rangatiratanga movement, the No Chinatown Hikoi Rangitahi (aka the Short March) will travel from the waterfront to Bastion Point, journeying from, across and towards disputed territories. Participants are encouraged to bring their own interpretations of “No Chinatown” and to protest for whatever they wish. Says Chow, “I’ll be marching to bring back Economical Snack Bar.”
Malone follows this waterfront route in his video tribute to the classic Hong Kong horror-comedy Mr Vampire. Showing at Artspace, his unsettling yellowface performance as an old man babbling bigotry unravels into supernatural farce, and hops towards a kung-fu showdown at the Michael Joseph Savage memorial. Chow guest-stars as the medicine-master, performing the demonically racialised exorcism.
Chow, the only local Chinese artist involved, is also the only one building anything. Her brick moongate, being laid in the St Paul Street Gallery’s window, is a moment of silence cutting through the discursive clamour of the project. Is its circular form an absence? Is it an entrance? Unfortunately, in Chinese, there’s no such thing as a simple yes or no.
The No Chinatown Hikoi Rangitahi starts from the Ferry Terminal, March 17, 4.00pm
The No Chinatown Hikoi Rangitahi starts from the Ferry Terminal, March 17, 4.00pm
