8

I feel like a small seedling that has sprouted but has not yet emerged above the ground. . . . When the
seedling grows it must press the earth surrounding it and the earth must also press the seedling back. I
feel that this is just like my relationship with my surroundings-a relationship of squeezing and pressing.
Yin Xiuzhen
1
Constructed against the framework of her own experiences, Yin Xiuzhens installations Ruined
City (1996), Peking Opera (2000), and the ongoing series Portable Cities each begin with and
return to a distinctive notion of the city. Having lived her entire life in Beijing, Yin Xiuzhen has
reacted to the massive changes in the citys architecture and infrastructure from the mid-1990s
onward, her work serving as an index of the evolving life of the city and the life of the artist,
with each piece highlighting the intersection between the two. Since the late 1990s, her increased
interactions with cities beyond Beijing have also motivated reconceptions of urban space and
comparative studies of different locales. Her works not only reveal a constant shift in the perceived
space of the city, but also speak to transformations of her own role in relation to her environment.
In her works, the independent identities of the city and the individual uctuate as much as the
relationship between the two. In fact, it is in Yin Xiuzhens works that we are made to realize that
each has the potential to both displace itself and be displaced by the other. Applying as much to
the site as to the self, this notion of displacement can be understood as the process of taking
and/or the state of being out of context. For example, displacement in the humanitarian sense can
refer to the forcible movement of persons within their own country. While Yin Xiuzhen explores
this humanitarian denition of displacement as it is applied to Beijing, she also uses it as a point of
departure for further examinations of the term itself. In particular, she interrogates the relation-
ship between the city and the individual and the presupposition of the existence of an appropriate
place for one inside the other.
In tracing the complex and divergent interpretations of the language of displacement present in
her three installations, it is possible to outline the conditions of existence that led to the produc-
tion of each work. Through the treatment of each installation as a separate event, a biographical
reconstruction of Yin Xiuzhens life since 1996 can be pieced together. The resulting portrait, how-
ever, is not a single narrative, not a simple monographic identity. Rather, a historicization of the
language employed in each installation reveals that each event led to the emergence of a new and
discrete identity. Through a study of how Yin Xiuzhen constructs her works, I intend to seek an
understanding of how they can be used to construct and position the changing identities of the
artist in relation to her living environment.
Yin Xiuzhens use of installation art as a spatial medium can be rooted rst within the historical
context of 1990s experimental art in China. While her studies in the ne arts earned her a degree
in oil painting from Capital Normal University in 1989, her turn to installation art in 1994 marked
the beginning of her explorations in modes of spatial representation. On the introduction of
installation art into China, critic Yin Shuangxi has noted, In the mid-1980s, young [Chinese]
artists did not understand the concept, connotations, or origins of installation art. They did not
employ the term installation comprehensively even as they adopted it.
2
Although installation art
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vvccv wzxc
88
was initially used primarily for its anti-mainstream status, the mid-1990s saw a conscious turn
away from collective efforts addressing reections on and reconciliations with historical ideology.
3
A new interest in examining the vast transformations within the present landscape emerged dur-
ing this new era of experimentation that moved beyond indiscriminately adopting installation art
as a mere tool. It is in this address of the contemporary that I will examine Yin Xiuzhens investi-
gations of both representations of the city as a space and the space of the city itself.
Ranging from explorations of the city as her home to the notion of the global city,
4
Yin Xiuzhen
treats the city as a place that never ceases to shift and undergo transformation. In one respect,
with the destruction and construction of an ever-changing cityscape, these shifts can be under-
stood in the strictly physical sense. Functioning in the logic of measurable and rational space, this
re-diagramming of the topology of a place is perhaps the most visually noticeable phenomenon
affecting the city. But it is also the modication of spatial practices, the clearing away of traditional
codes, and the introduction of a new logic within that are causing shifts in value systems as well as
social, economic, and cultural frameworks. Transformations in the artists roles as both observer
and participant in the spatial practices of the city can thus be traced according to her understanding
of the city as a site of movement, dynamism, and a place for the ongoing dialectic between
displacement and placement.
This essay is organized around three installationsRuined City, Peking Opera, and Portable Cities.
However, this chronological ordering is not meant to render the works as phases in a linear
trajectory of a historical narrative. Rather, as the evidence will indicate, the process of making
visible the artist's identities and experiences within the city reveals quite the opposite. It is precisely
the complexities and, at times, contradictory notions of the city that defy a simple linear path
for understanding the artist and her imagined cities. It is the unstable identity of the artist, as
constructed by her equally volatile environment, that gains our attention as viewers and readers.
vu:wzn c:rr: c:1v ov nv1v:1us
Sometimes when I would ride my bike to work I would hear a sound, look around to see a house fall
down. Everywhere you looked you could see the character chai (tear down) written on buildings.
Sometimes you would go out in the morning and see the character on a house, and come back in the
evening to nd the house already gone.
Yin Xiuzhen
5
Figure 1. Yin Xiuzhen, Ruined City, 1996, installation of furniture and cement, Art Museum of Capital Normal University, Beijing. Courtesy of the artist.
8
Exhibited in 1996, Ruined City was created in response to Yin Xiuzhen's negotiations with and
internalization of the specic living conditions in Beijing at that time. The overall structure,
individual elements, and material components of the piece all speak to a language of displacement
as seen through a lens of ruin, as suggested in the title.
This installation originally occupied its own three-hundred-square-metre exhibition hall within
the Art Museum of the Chinese Normal University in Beijing (g. 1). The focus of the installation
is an expanse of grey roof tiles that stretches diagonally from one corner of the room to the other.
Each ceramic tile, rectangular and slightly curved, measures 22 x 25 cm. Arranged in an orderly
manner, the ceramic tiles are placed side-by-side into neatly formed rows that increase in length as
the mass of tiles reaches the opposite corner. Consisting of 1,400 ceramic tiles, the tile formation
widens and leads to a heavy bed frame (g. 2). The bed itself is covered haphazardly by a sizeable
mound of cement powder, with the same material sprinkled beneath. The tiles surrounding the
bed are sparsely dispersed and appear arbitrarily scattered in contrast to the dense weave of tiles at
the other end.
At the center of this expanse of tiles is a set of four wooden chairs. As a collection, the identical
chairs have been placed evenly, side-by-side, to echo the repetition and rhythm of the neighbouring
tiles. The four chairs appear solid and xed in a horizontal row. A small mountain of cement
powder on each seat further accentuates the weighty nature of each chair and simultaneously
denies their function as a means of providing respite. Refuting the notion of social engagement,
the chairs all face the corner of the room, where the path of tiles tapers off towards the wall.
The room is divided into three large sections with six islands of individual furniture pieces
dispersed evenly throughout. On the left of the tile formation are a wire stand with a wash basin
Yin Xiuzhen, Ruined City, 1996, installation of furniture and cement, Art Museum of Capital Normal University, Beijing. Courtesy of the artist.
o
and a vanity with a mirror. The aforementioned bed lies among the tiles, while a chair, an armoire, and a
table are to the right. Although they are all oriented towards the interior of the room, there is no sense of
engagement among them. With each sitting in its own pile of cement powder and discrete space, they are
unied only by a shared sense of isolation. The overall static feeling is reinforced by the combination of
heavy, inert objects with a denitive division of the space by the mass of tiles.
As objects, the furniture and tiles in this installation can be classied into two categories: found objects
and personal objects. The category found object refers to the manner in which the objects were procured.
In the work, these include the roof tiles and all of the furniture items with the exception of the central set
of chairs. The action of nding invokes a sense of discovery and exposure, but implicit in the acquisition
of the found object are the attendant notions of salvaging and collection for the purpose of either reuse or
archiving. The very idea that the object is found brings to light the conditions surrounding its process of
appropriation. Signicantly, the artist procured all of the pieces of found object furniture in alleyways
near her home. Neighbours had discarded these items in favour of newer models.
The personal objects in the exhibition include the set of four chairs in the center, which were among the
rst possessions that Yin Xiuzhen and her husband and fellow artist, Song Dong, owned after they were
married.
6
The placement of the artist's own set of chairs at the center of the installation addresses what is
at stake for her. Through the deliberate removal of possessions from her own home, the placement of
them in the gallery, and the treatment of them in the same manner as the found objects, she is also taking
part in processes of disposal and abandonment.
The practices of recovering found objects and forsaking personal possessions suggest an ongoing dialectic
between displacement and placement. Displacement, the act of taking something out of context, removing
or even banishing something from a place, occurs on two levels here. The rst is the displacement of the
objectwhether it be a tile or an item of furniture-from the original residence from which it came. The
second act of displacement is carried out by the artist who retrieves the object from its site of abandonment
and gives it a place in the exhibition hall. Displacement suggests a sense of instability, while its opposite,
placement, implies a feeling of rootedness. Placement can be understood as the positioning of a thing into
an appropriate and suitable context. The original context of displacement of these objects and the artists
placement of them into a new locale suggests that these are objects representing two sides of the same
coin. The rescuing and rearrangement of found roof tiles into what one scholar has argued to be an aerial
view of courtyard houses, seems to suggest a nostalgic reminder of the things original purpose.
7
At the
same time, however, the purpose for a roof collapses when it lies futilely on the ground. Yin Xiuzhens
interrogation of this binary opposition in her installation opens up questions about the terms by which
placement is established and the means by which it can be eradicated.
Embedded within these processes of displacement is an emphasis on fragmentation. As displaced objects,
the roof tiles and furniture pieces represent fragments of the context from which they were taken. The
roof tiles once served as external architectural xtures, while the different pieces of furniture once occupied
the interior of a house. Together, they allude to residences and families. In particular, roof tiles derive their
functionality from their ability to provide shelter. Similarly, a furnished house is one that suggests stability
and permanence. Roof tiles lying on the ground and furniture covered with piles of cement powder not
only point towards their state of disrepair and decay, but, more immediately, to their disuse. Moreover, in
the case of the found object furniture, these items were discarded because the owners replaced them with
newer, recently purchased pieces. These two models of disuse, one enforced, the other voluntary, are both
instigated by a desire for the new.
:
Indeed, the most signicant force inuencing the materialization of this language was the citys
large-scale urban renewal project, which displaced numerous families and left the rubble of their
destroyed residences in its wake. In 1990, the Old and Dilapidated Housing Renewal Program was
implemented under the auspices of the Beijing municipal government. Ostensibly, the objective
was to better the living standards of those inhabiting the run-down residential housing. The con-
centration of dilapidated houses fell within the 62 square kilometres of the old city of Beijing. The
traditional architectural layout of the Old City consisted of blocks of siheyuan, or courtyard hous-
es, divided by a network of narrow alleys called hutong. Until 1989, about 30% of the land was
occupied by traditional buildings, including courtyard houses, which totalled about eleven million
square metres and housed some 1.2 million people.
8
Of the families that were displaced, most
would be required to resettle in suburban dwellings. Although the new housing on the citys
periphery was often larger and equipped with more modern conveniences, this process of dis-
placement had severe social implications. The tearing down of houses is more than a physical act
of destruction; it affects the homes and families within. Yin Xiuzhen collected all of the roof tiles
for Ruined City from demolition sites near her home. Her scattering of these tiles and aging furni-
ture in the exhibition alludes to the torn social fabric of contemporary Beijing.
The swiftness and scale of this program of physical restructuring created an urgency for transfor-
mation, and, subsequently, disruption within the artists own neighbourhood. After her marriage,
she moved into a siheyuan. As residents of a courtyard house, she and her husband were also at
risk of having their home torn down and being displaced themselves. Given the risk of being
uprooted as a result of these transformations, it was only natural for her to question what would
become of her life in the midst of these destructive activities.
The artists incorporation of cement powder as a unifying element in the installation is integral
to her language of destruction. The presence of cement powder in her everyday environment, in
its use as a common material for new construction, implied the inevitable destruction that
would ensue. The transformative quality of the cement powder itself refers to this process of
destruction. Hydration, the chemical reaction that takes place between cement powder and water,
occurs as soon as the two make contact. Even the piles of cement powder in the exhibit will
undergo this exothermic reaction as the moisture in the air starts to set. When the surface hardens,
it becomes as hard as stone. Impossible to reverse, the cement has become concrete. There is irony
in that, though it may resemble the dust left by time, it cannot be wiped away so that one can
revive what is beneath.
This slow, silent process of obliteration instills a very particular view of the city. We see the
conditions of her existence in the numerous forms of destruction that she has presented in her
installation. This soundless destruction points not so much to the extreme violence of demolition
as it occurs in her physical environment, but to the silent, insidious violence done to the social
environment. The slow paving over of displaced remnants and fragmented traces of life indeed
shows a city in ruins. The artists own role here is as an inhabitant of a city undergoing hyper-
modernization and, subsequently, as a resident within a neighbourhood undergoing demolition.
She is both an observer and a victim within her ruined city.
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Nobody can avoid life. Life is no more than self experience.
Yin Xiuzhen
9
i
From 1996 to 2000, Beijing saw vast changes, both from the outside in and the inside out, most
notably through the rapid expansion of transnational corporations, a remapping of its physical
terrain, and the continuation of capitalist-inspired economic reforms. Created in 2000, Peking
Opera can be understood as a materialization of the artist's response to the changes in the city
during a time of movement and transition.
First exhibited in 2000, Peking Opera was shown at several different international venues. Two
particular incarnations of the work will be examined here: the rst is Fuori Uso 2000, The Bridges,
which took place in Pescara, Italy. The second is Living in Time, which took place in the
Hamburger Bahnhof Contemporary Art Museum in Berlin, Germany, in 2001. The treatment of
each exhibition as a separate event leading to its own construction reveals the artist's own
rethinking of her vision and conception of this work in relation to its changing location.
Peking Opera consists of three basic materials: life-size colour photographs, small wooden stools,
and sound recordings. Fuori Uso 2000 included three life-size photographs. While Living in Time
expanded upon these images, I will rst focus on the original three.
The rst of these three photographs (g. 3) attends to a group of elderly people performing
Peking opera music in public spaces in the Houhai district of Beijing. In the foreground, a man
is singing and standing with arms theatrically outstretched. Meanwhile, accompanying him on
traditional Chinese instruments are two men seated on small stools and one man squatting on
the curb. Six men can be seen standing or sitting in the background, openly watching and
enjoying the performance.
The second photograph (g. 4) portrays two men, one facing us and the other with his back
to us, playing Chinese chess in a hutong. In this narrow alley, bordered by courtyard houses,
the two men have set their chessboard onto a simple wooden table. Seated on small stools,
pushed all the way to the right hand side of the alley, they intently play their game while a
bicyclist exits in the background.
The third photograph (g. 5) focuses on a group of people gathered around a table. The group
clusters in the center of the middle ground of the photograph, each member visible either in
Figure 3. Yin Xiuzhen, Peking Opera, 2001, print on silk, 145 x 210 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

prole or with his back to us. The

numerous circular cages hanging from
the trees in the foreground refer to a
leisure activity, common among the elderly,
called liu niao. Early in the morning,
individuals bring their birds in cages into
parks or small streets, hang the cages in
the trees, and then sit and chat.
As a set of three, the photographs capture elderly Beijingers in the midst of daily activities. These
ordinary scenes from their lives offer an intimate view of one pocket of the Beijing community.
It is critical to note that the focus of each of these photographs, in content and positioning, is a
grouping of individuals. In the rst image, there is both a central music group and a scattering
of peripheral bystanders. In the second photograph, two men are absorbed in a game. And in the
third photograph, a tightly knit group is gathered in the middle of the image. These different
forms of interaction are brought together by their status as everyday activity. Each individuals
inward-looking stance, close proximity to another individual, and thorough absorption in the
activity at hand, serves to magnify a sense of intimacy and interaction.
Accompanying this language of
interaction is the notion of engagement,
understood as a sustained connection to
both people and place. Indeed, the gures
are all engaged with each other through
a shared activity. Underscoring their
interactions, however, is also their
apparent xity to their location. In the
rst photograph, seated musicians play
instruments while the central singer, with
gestures deliberate and timed, enacts a
performance to the accompaniment. In the second image, we see a game of thought and strategy
as it is being carried out; the pairs concentration on the activity at hand captures a stillness that
is emphasized when placed in contrast with the bicyclist speeding out of the picture plane. And in
the nal photograph, an informal gathering shows no indication of dispersion. Here, we are
shown the dynamics between performing an activity with others and being at rest.
The critical feature in each photograph that activates and epitomizes this dynamic is seatedness.
In each image, the seats ground people to their location. The seats themselves reassure us that
these people are rooted and engaged, rather than itinerant and rushed. This notion of seatedness
is most readily apparent in the artists inclusion of small stools in the exhibition. The acts of
simultaneously being seated and being active are manifested in this physically interactive element
of the installation. The artists incorporation of wooden stools refers both to the activities being
carried out in the images and to the viewers awareness of her own role as participant and
observer. Most of the stools stand no more than a foot off the ground and, as pieces of traditional
Beijing furniture, they represent pieces of the everyday.
The sound element, which consists of recordings of elderly people performing Peking opera in
the park, further enhances this sense of interaction. Through the visual and the aural, the visitor
Figure 4. Yin Xiuzhen, Peking Opera installation view, 2000, including photographs,
stools, and sound recordings. Fuori Uso 2000, Pescara, Italy. Courtesy of the artist.
Figure 5. Yin Xiuzhen, Peking Opera installation view, 2000, including photographs,
stools, and sound recordings. Fuori Uso 2000, Pescara, Italy. Courtesy of the artist.
|
is given the opportunity to involve herself in the installation. Particularly in reference to the rst
image, the act of sitting, watching, and listening to the scene presented seems to be an attempt,
on the artists part, at recreating a particular experience. In fact, this language of engagement and
interaction, as displayed in the actual images and between the image and the viewer, speaks directly
to the artists own experiences in Beijing.
While the artist, herself, does not t into the demographic of elderly people, their inclusion in her
living environment afforded her the opportunity to observe their activities and lifestyles. Her
documentation of elderly people addresses issues that confront this particular segment of the
population. The urban renewal projects detailed in Ruined City saw the displacement of entire
families, including the relocation of elderly family members who often faced particular difcultly
in adjusting to life away from the siheyuan and hutong network. With the removal of their social
infrastructure, elderly people needed to adapt physically and psychologically to a quickly changing
environment. The artist's capturing of their daily activities suggests the continuity of place that
exists despite initiatives towards displacement.
In contrast to Ruined City, displacement in Peking Opera does not lead directly to disuse and
decay. Rather, we nd evidence of the survival of habitual activities. These habits are part of a
slower pace of life, one based on themes of community and leisure, and seemingly at odds with
the high-speed, mobile, and commercially driven lifestyle promoted by the global city. Yet, the
elderly have managed to nd their own place even within this newly modernized Beijing. The
artists language of engagement and interaction reinforces these notions of placement, rootedness,
and survival. The incorporation of stools into the exhibit is an attempt to further provide ground-
ing and placement for the viewer to observe this process. Seen in contrast to the set of four chairs
in Ruined City, the stools here are inviting, accessible, and functional. They speak to the continual
use and reuse of objects, the placement of such objects into a specic environment, and a deliber-
ate purpose for doing so. In contrast to the complete destruction and displacement of life as dis-
played in Ruined City, Peking Opera invites, incorporates, and depicts the continuity of the living.
As viewers, we are made to identify with the artists position as a witness to the survival of tradi-
tional narratives of Beijing, as represented by both the elderly and the local traditions they carry
on. In Ruined City, we saw the artist as a potential victim of programs of displacement. The signif-
icance of Peking Opera extends beyond a concern for the elderly in Beijing to a concern for the
continuity of all local traditions, practices, and memories.
The artist interrogates the effects of globalization on local communities. Fredric Jameson points to
two opposing, though interrelated, interpretations of this globalization:
If you insist on the cultural contents of this new communicational form [i.e., globalization], I think
you will slowly emerge into a postmodern celebration of difference and differentiation. . . [as well as] a
falling away of those structures that condemned whole segments of the population to silence and to
subalternity. . . . If, on the other hand, your thoughts turn economic . . . [then] globalization is a picture
of standardization on an unparalleled new scale; of forced integration as well, into a world-system
from which delinking . . . is henceforth impossible and even unthinkable and inconceivable.
10
In examining the incongruity between globalizations instigation of plurality versus standardized
universality, it is possible to uncover the conditions and terms surrounding the artists questioning
of these different interpretations of globalization and its implications for notions of displacement.
,
Yin Xiuzhens interrogation of the city as
the site of contestation for a global/local
duality can be seen in Peking Opera when
we consider each incarnation of it within
its particular site of installation. The
installation of the work in foreign cities
demonstrates a further questioning of the
survival of the local when moved into the
global. While the materials and content of
Peking Opera address the persistence of
tradition when faced with the entry of
global forces into Chinas borders, the installation of the piece in a foreign city takes this represen-
tation of the local and deliberately places, or rather displaces, it into that city. The artists emphasis
on interaction and engagement must be analyzed with careful consideration of the location of the
installation, its physical composition within the site, and the audience of each exhibition. As
demonstrated by the two distinct installations of the work considered here, these factors all have
direct implications on the artists articulation of displacement and placement, and, in turn,
notions of exclusivity and inclusivity.
Fuori Uso 2000 took place beneath
highway bridges in Pescara, Italy (g. 6).
Fuori uso, meaning out of use, refers to
the exhibit's annual theme of choosing a
place in Pescara that can be temporarily
converted into an exhibition space. The
installation of Peking Opera into such a
transformed space reinforced this very
question of the survival and loss of the
activities that come to occupy a location.
Installed under the highway, each element
of the piecethe photographs, stools, and audio recordingappeared extremely out of place.
Against a backdrop of large concrete structural supports, metal fences, and tall buildings,
the stools appeared disproportionately small and awkward. The recording of Peking opera
sung in a park clashed against the ambient noise of activity beneath the bridge. Placed in this
surrounding urban environment, the slow pace of life pictured in Yin Xiuzhen's images was
made even more palpable.
The bright white border surrounding each photograph further served as a visual barrier
between the space within the image and the place in which the image was installed. The white
border as a framing device placed the image within its own discrete space while emphasizing its
two-dimensionality. Its denial of any real sense of interactivity distanced the viewer from the
subject matter and emphasized the difference between the represented image and the environment
in which it was presented.
For the 2001 Berlin exhibit, Living in Time, the work was installed in its own gallery within the
museum rather than in an outdoor, urban space. Again, small stools were placed in front of images
of the elderly in Beijing engaged in quotidian activities, while a sound recording played in the
background. This time, however, the large photographs were replaced with wallpaper images
Figure 6. Yin Xiuzhen, Peking Opera installation view, 2000, including photographs,
stools, and sound recordings. Fuori Uso 2000, Pescara, Italy. Courtesy of the artist.
Figure 7. Yin Xiuzhen, Peking Opera installation view, 2001, including photo
wallpaper, stools, and sound recordings. Living in Time, Berlin. Courtesy of the artist.
o
(g. 7). Through this entire visual and aural immersion, the viewer was encouraged to pause and
enter the scene. The compositional design of each image, placed within the installation space,
communicated the works language of interaction and engagement. In each case, the ground
portrayed in the picture plane appeared not only unobstructed, but also altogether inviting. While
the previous installation saw the solid white border as the line of demarcation, the erasure of that
line here attempted to blur the idea of discrete spaces. Regardless of whether it is the viewer
entering the photographs space or the photograph spilling into the viewer's space, the composition
speaks to a notion of crossing boundaries.
This institutional venue allowed the artist to remove the distracting noises and visual diversions
that were present in Fuori Uso 2000. These two distinctive installation sites provided an opportunity
for the artist to investigate variations in the conveyance and reception of local traditions. Initially
confronted with these questions of displacement in her own home city, the artist took her
documentation of these local narratives abroad to examine how they would fare when doubly
displaced in a foreign environment. Through her experimentations with and explorations of
installation sites, we see her own rethinking of how local traditions can be translated and transmitted
across borders.
vovrnszz c:r:z: c:1v ov mov:::1v
When I began this series, I was constantly traveling. I saw the baggage conveyer at the baggage claim
every time I traveled. Many people waited there. I was one of them. Since I always traveled with a huge
suitcase, it felt like I was traveling with my home.
Yin Xiuzhen
11
Figure 8. Yin Xiuzhen, Portable CityBeijing, 2001, installation. Courtesy of the artist.

In 2001, Yin Xiuzhen began a new series entitled Portable Cities. In addition to the construction of
an identity based solely on the conditions of existence in Beijing, the series also includes the
artist's rst attempts at visually representing foreign cities. In 2002, one year after the making of
Portable CityBeijing (g. 8), she created Portable CityShanghai (g. 9) and Portable City
Berlin (g. 10). The series is ongoing, and the artist has since added thirteen cities, ranging from
Lhasa to Vancouver. The thread that connects all of these apparently disparate places is the artists
personal connections with each location, whether as an inhabitant, temporary resident, or tourist.
Located within the conceptual framework of the global city, this series examines the artists self-
positioning as both an insider and an outsider. By endowing each piece with the potential for
portability, she raises a question of whether a thing is perpetually in or out of place, thereby prob-
lematizing the very notion of displacement.
An investigation of both disparate and unifying elements in the rst three portable cities, Beijing,
Shanghai, and Berlin, will evidence how the artist distinguishes between representations of the
cities according to varying levels of familiarity with them. Situated against the historical backdrop
of time, these notions of sameness and difference in urban spaces speak to the shifting relationship
between the city and the individual in the face of globalization.
Portable CityBeijing, which takes a suitcase as its physical framework, measures 30.5 x 91.4 x 61
cm. Within the interior, a ring of little colourful cloth buildings and a television tower line the
perimeter of the suitcase. A light green shirt has been stretched out across the interior to create a
surface on which the cloth buildings have been sewn. The space within the frame of buildings is
bare except near the center where the green base has been stretched into a circular opening.
Within this hole, the artist has afxed a macro lens through which one can see a map of Beijing
lining the bottom of the suitcase. Along the bottom of the suitcase, beneath the stretched green
base, she has installed a light and a set of speakers. Emanating from the speakers is a sound record-
ing of noises from Shichahai, the public district just north of Beihai Park. In addition to the noises
of people chatting, one can also hear elderly Beijingers performing Peking opera.
Figure 9. Yin Xiuzhen, Portable CityShanghai, 2002, installation. Courtesy of the artist.
8
Constructed and exhibited in 2001,
Portable CityBeijing ostensibly served as
the template for subsequent works in the
series. However, given Beijings position as
her home, Yin Xiuzhens perception of
this place is markedly different from that
of the other cities. The four essential
recurring elements of these works are
the suitcase, the map, the clothing, and
the sound recording. While the three
installations appear visually uniform in
their inclusion of these materials, each
installations particular use and synthesis
of these common materials reveals
divergent interpretations of the city based
on the artists own relationship with the
represented place.
It is striking that when looking at Portable
CityBeijing, the viewer cannot discern
any distinctive features in this constructed
cityscape that speak to its identity as
Beijing. It is only by peering through the
magnifying lens that one can receive any real conrmation of the citys identity. Simultaneously
concealed and magnied, the map at the base of the suitcase seems to anticipate the viewers
deference to the objective interpretation of a diagrammed place as an authoritative tool. The map
here offers a particular interpretation of the city as a space rendered through lines, landmarks, and
text. It is the city as a diagram, reduced to its most technical, mathematical, and geometric terms.
A testament to the results of urban planning, the map is a powerful instrument used to record the
supposed spatial and geographic order of a place.
This static and stringent two-dimensional representation of the city serves as a base for the three-
dimensional cityscape of buildings above. Rather than adopting the map's method of reporting
recognizable features of Beijings geography, the line of anonymous, simplied structures denies
the notion of a simulacral representation. Each cloth building is a small, colourful rectangular
block devoid of distinguishing characteristics. The composition of these buildings, which follows
the contour of the suitcase, also lacks any sense of specicity. This is not a place one could point
to on a map, nor one that anyone other than the artist herself could identify with certainty as
being Beijing. It is the artists own familiarity with Beijing that shapes her imagination of the
place. While these buildings remain anonymous to the viewer, to the artist they mark an intimacy
that extends beyond the need for mapped sites.
In contrast to this seemingly anonymous rendering of Beijing, Portable CityShanghai and
Portable CityBerlin each display recognizable features. Portable CityShanghai, measuring
129.5 x 80 x 40 cm, has a blue-green shirt stretched across its surface. The back cover of the suit-
case, covered with a piece of red cloth, is decorated with a circle of lights. A pair of nylon stockings
have been stretched from the left side of the back cover to the front right corner of the suitcase.
The legs of the stockings form two parallel curves, which swoop diagonally over the surface and
Figure 10. Yin Xiuzhen, Portable CityBerlin, 2002, installation. Courtesy of the artist.

divide the blue fabric base into two triangular regions. While the front, lower left triangular region
remains bare, small rectangular cloth buildings and a television tower are clustered in the back,
right-hand corner of the suitcase. Again, a magnifying lens has been set into a central circular
opening through which one can see a map, this time of Shanghai. A light and a set of speakers
have also been placed in the bottom of the suitcase. The light can be seen shining through the blue
cloth, while a recording of the Shanghai soundscape is emitted from the work.
Portable CityBerlin, also 129.5 x 80 x 40 cm, uses a brown-and-orange-striped shirt as the cloth
surface on which are attached the cluster of buildings. Most of the buildings are centered towards
the back of the suitcase, while some, including a television tower, are placed on the interior of the
suitcase cover. Architectural features such as columns and pediments can be detected on two of
the buildings. Two sleeves extend parallel out of the front of the suitcase, onto which the artist has
sewn four small, cloth rectangular vehicles. The circular opening with a magnifying loupe is also
included in this work, through which one can see a Berlin map illuminated by a light bulb. Again,
an audio recording of sounds from the city plays from the bottom of the suitcase.
Prominent architectural features of both cityscapes feature signicantly in the artists two renderings.
Her depiction of Shanghai, for example, is anchored by the presence of the Oriental Pearl
Television tower. Similarly, the Fernsehturm, Berlins television tower, looms large on the citys
horizon. The detail of the architectural structures in the image of Berlin stands in sharp contrast
to the anonymity of Beijings buildings in Portable CityBeijing. Brandenburg Gate, for example,
is easily identiable in the artists rendition of Berlin. This movement away from the anonymous
cityscape can be explained by the artist's own rapport with and understanding of each place.
Through Portable CityBeijing, the conditions of existence are understood as affecting the artist
as an inhabitant experiencing and observing the everyday changes occurring within her home. Her
relationships with Shanghai and Berlin, meanwhile, are far less intimate. While she did spend one
year abroad in a residency in Berlin, from 1999-2000, a sense of identication with the city is not
evident in her depiction of it. The display of recognizable attractions and renowned sites conveys
the understanding of place of a sightseer. It is the identication with the tourist-oriented sites,
rather than the intimate knowledge of its daily practices, that marks the artists role as a visitor.
These two separate identities, as insider and outsider, account for the differences in perception and
construction of the cities.
Portable CityBeijing includes both visual and non-visual references to the city as a lived space.
For this work, the artist collected old clothing from her own wardrobe and her family to build the
structures and base within her city. Once personal possessions, each item of clothing retains a
peculiar sentimental signicance. These items have their own stories in how they were procured,
the occasions for which they were worn, and the value that they had for the wearer. For the rendition
of Beijing, the artists inclusion of her own clothing speaks to the place as her home. For the other
works in the series, the artist collected used clothing from the residents of the represented place.
The actual integration of residents old belongings lends each separate installation its own
signicance as a work possessing the remnants of that place's living memories and experiences.
Adding to this notion of the city as a social space of activity, the audio recording in this installation
broadcasts voices and noises that occupy the represented place. While the audio component of
Peking Opera was used to help recreate the experience of actually being in a space, the acoustic
element of Portable Cities serves more as an allusion to such an experience. For example, the
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sounds of the Beijing park remind the viewer that this place is a home to its inhabitants. In partic-
ular, the inclusion of the sounds of Peking Opera in the park speaks to the continuity of tradition.
In her construction of the different portable cities, from the perspective of either the resident
or the tourist, the artist interrogates the city as a site of contestation, especially of the binary
opposition between the global and the local. In her standardization of the same basic physical
structure of the different portable cities, she questions the gradual uniformity of all global cities.
Perhaps the most telling example of this returns to the repetition of the television tower motif.
Evidence of the growth of high-speed communication and mass media, the television tower
has become a ubiquitous element of the global city. Dissolving boundaries through broadcasts,
the television tower seems to be the fundamental sign for the technically based, high-speed,
boundary-free interpretation of space and practice.
It is this notion of crossing borders that speaks most directly to the rise of tourist culture and the
artist's place within it. Rather than being rooted to one place, accessibility to the world has allowed
the individual to move freely throughout. Implicit in this mobility, however, is also a sense of root-
lessness. The artists representations of Shanghai and Berlin both reify this notion of the tourist as
displaced individual. The artists employment of a recognizable cityscape emphasizes the map
beneath, which provides an authoritative tool for determining ones place within the terrain. In its
identication of you are here, the map serves as a tool for placement. The language of placement
here is ironic, however, given the travelers implicit displacement within a foreign environment.
These references to mobility and displacement apply just as much to the place as to the person in
the age of globalization. This is demonstrated by the artists use of the suitcase as the framework
for each piece. Maintaining its original function, the suitcase can be shut, sealed, and transported
with all of its contents intact. By representing the city as a packageable and mobile entity, the artist
has not only stripped it of its rootedness, but has also effectively conferred it with the ability to
cross borders and boundaries. In its mobility, the movement of the city from one place to another
suggests a constant displacement of place.
The continued transformation of Beijing into a global city certainly contributed to the artists
interrogation of the effects of globalization. But it was also the artists own travels outside of her
home that served as the source of many of these questions about the sameness and difference of
place. While changes in Beijing seemed to signify a movement towards the displacement of its
inhabitants, when travelling abroad, the artist was again made to question her position as an
individual out of context. Unable to avoid questions of displacement within an increasingly
mobile world, the artist's self-positioning moves constantly into, out of, and between cities.
Through examinations of these three works by Yin Xiuzhen, I have reviewed a series of events
that shaped the artists life from 1996 onwards. These works, all created in response to the conditions
underscoring and controlling her living environment, reect constant change in the artists
conception of herself. As evidenced by additions to her Portable Cities series, her concern with
the relationship between the individual and the city has continued to shape her life and her work.
Initially, as reections upon the volatility and transformation within the city itself, her own
denitions of the city have altered as she has repositioned herself with regard to changing
perceptions of place.
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Since 1996, she has continually encountered the effects of displacement, particularly through
the lens of globalization, which has become an increasingly inuential force in her environment.
In 1996, the notion of the global city appeared on her horizon as a threat to entire communities,
including the danger of displacement in her own. Her construction of Ruined City saw these
initiatives towards renewal as catalysts for destruction and loss. A persistent concern for the
possible loss of local tradition, as brought about by Beijings drive towards hyper-modernization,
led the artist to examine the conditions of displacement and the possibilities for survival in these
circumstances. In Peking Opera, her juxtaposition of surviving local traditions with foreign sites
helped her to realize her own role as an artist with international renown capable of communicating
the concerns of a local Beijinger. Her travels to other global cities have led to a questioning of the
possession, occupation, and connection that people have to places.
Each of her installations begins with and returns to her concern for Beijing. Its changes in physical
appearance, social fabric, and local traditions all evidence its transformation into a global city. In
accordance with the growing power of global forces, Yin Xiuzhen has also experienced great
changes in her own identity. While she began as someone who necessarily saw the city solely from
the inside, she has since been able to gain an outsider's perspective.
The opening up of the artists own world through effects of globalization should not be overlooked.
Audience participation and involvement in Yin Xiuzhens works has also been facilitated through
global channels. Through such means as the distribution of materials, digital media, international
exhibitions, and travelling exhibitions, the artist has been able to communicate her recreations of
local experiences, questionings of global forces, and continual studies of sameness and difference.
Understood in post-industrial terms, exhibitions of her work represent occasions for information
exchange. This possibility for greater diversity and plurality through the uncovering of more
voices and languages represents another facet of globalization. Not only have her works opened up
the very nature of the city as a site of contestation, she herself represents the complexities inherent
in an understanding of globalization and its effects on the individual. Ultimately, it is the
emergence of the diversity of Yin Xiuzhen's identities that speaks most clearly to the contradictory
negotiations of displacement between the local and the global.
Notes
1
Wu Hung, Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century (Chicago: The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art,
University of Chicago, 1999), 125.
2
Yin Shuangxi, The Periphery and Cultural Concerns: Making and Exhibiting Installation and Experimental Sculpture in the 1990s, in
Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Chinese Art (1990-2000) (Guangzhou: Guangdong Museum of Art, 2002), 67.
3
For more on this turn to addressing the contemporary in the 1990s, see Wu Hung, Introduction: A Decade of Chinese Experimental Art
(1990-2000) in Reinterpretation, 10-19.
4
The term global city here refers to the interpretation put forth by Saskia Sassen in Globalization and Its Discontents (New York: The New
Press, 1998), which suggests the city as a strategic site for the new politics made possible by globalization in a detailed understanding of the
economics of globalization, and specically in the centrality of place against a rhetorical and policy context where place is seen as neutralized
by global communications and the hypermobility of capital. (21)
5
Ai Weiwei, ed., Chinese Artists, Texts and Interviews: Chinese Contemporary Art Awards (CCAA) 1998-2002
(Hong Kong: Timezone 8, 2002), 130-31.
6
Wu Hung, Transience, 123.
7
Lin Xiaoping, Beijing: Yin Xiuzhen's The Ruined City, Third Text 48 (Autumn 1999): 46.
8
Zheng Lian, Housing Renewal in Beijing-Observation and Analysis masters thesis, McGill University, 1995,
http://www.mchg.mcgill.ca/mchg/lia/lianch3.htm (accessed September 27, 2004).
9
Half of the Sky: Contemporary Chinese Women Artists (Bonn: Frauen Museum, 1998), 70.
10
Fredric Jameson, Notes on Globalization as a Philosophical Issue, in The Cultures of Globalization
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), 56-57.
11
Christophe W. Mao, ed., Chopsticks (New York: Chambers Fine Art, 2002), 70.