"My motivation was to find a way to montage two very unlikely narratives, ones that would conceptually resonate somewhere between Robert Sherman's composition "It’s a Small World After All” (Mary Poppins), and Marshall McLuhan’s theory of "the global village".
a tale of two islands.
Art Nanjing University Art Museum, Grand World, photography installation, 2015
Susak island, Grand World processes, Croatia, 2016
Local police, visit, 2014
Phu Quoc, rush hour, 2014
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"Grand World" is my investigation into two islands worlds apart, but confronted by similar present and historical challenges: gentrification's threat and loss of deep traditions, graft and war. My goal was to close geographic gaps between these two islands in order to develop some form of narrative that would represent their cultural upheaval. In 2015, my partner and I travelled to Vietnam, to Phú Quôc Island off the coast of Cambodia and on the Gulf of Thailand. We travelled by motorcycle through fishing villages, quietly exploring the lives of the local people. Travelling up island to the flatlands, we came across an unusual grassy hill, surrounded by pebbles and stone as well as a huge cement parking lot. It seemed to be the precursor to Phú Quôc's future. On top of the hill stood 5-foot letters spelling out “GRAND WORLD” and we had no idea what it meant. GRAND WORLD stood there looking more like a Barbra Kruger text sculpture. Through our conversations with locals, we were able to understand that Phú Quôc was at the beginning of "exciting changes" that would bring tourism and development — saving Phú Quôc from a turbulent past. One local said it with glee, and the another was skeptical. We learned that GRAND WORLD was the name of a new golf course and amusement park. Today, Phú Quôc is a tourist island and has a yearly music festival.
In 2006 and again in 2014, by invitation, I travelled to Susak, Croatia to be part of an Art Expo, but it was not until my second trip that I realized how similar Susak was to Phú Quôc. Both are ancient islands surviving with fishing and other smaller exports. They are both far enough from mainland and historically, they operated independently from mainland. Unlike Phú Quôc, Susak does not allow cars on the island, and until recently, has avoided tourism in the form of hotels. Now, expensive yachts, owned by the likes of Tom Cruise and Russian oligarchs, are visiting the shoreline and docking at its port. The elders of Susak are fighting change, but it seems inevitable.
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Phu Quoc island, Golden World land development and fishing villages, 2014
Historically, both Phú Quôc and Susak are in stark contrast to their pasts. In the 17th century, the French built prisons on Phú Quôc island to house fighting Vietnamese who were trying to protect their country from the French and the tin trade. Later, Khmer Rouge (Pol Pot) used the island for jailing Cambodians, and the Americans used it to jail the Vietcong. Likewise, Susak was under the Roman Empire and was used for a shipping port. Later, it was given by the Napoleon Empire to Mussolini in Italy, who built prisons on it in World War 2. Under President Tito’s Socialist regime, the island was used as a prison for anyone that decented from ideologies of "his" Yugoslavia.
Grand World flag, in-situ, Susak, Croatia, 2016
Tito’s Prison in Grand World, 7 digital photographs on aluminium, 50”x60”, 2015