Liu Shiyuan: Floating event: Vejle Museum
Liu Shiyuan is a Chinese artist living in Denmark. Being a foreign artist in a country far from home, her work often deals directly and indirectly with the
complex situation of immigrant identity sophistically.
Floating Event is a crate stuffed with a rich selection of fresh tropical fruits – all highly artificial and made in China. The two-by-two meters crate of exotic
produce is anchored not far from the shore, floating minimally and indefinitely.
Fake fruits are abundant in China in both public and private spaces, and the manufacture of such product entails great pollutions. Unlike the miraculous scene depicted by Botticelli, there is nothing natural or divine here. The fake fruits represents a metaphor for humans mobilised and immigrated trying to survive: Together we float indefinitely but beautifully and lively in such an artificial fashion. The fake fruits can also be taken as simply fruits, outliving us, ever fresh, lively and alien. A perverse preservation as such suggests an alternative solution to the future.