Dinu Li
18 September – 10 November 2007
Press Release
The Mother of all Journeys is an exploration by second generation British Chinese artist Dinu Li into the memories of his 80-year-old mother. Since 2001, Dinu worked in collaboration with his mother, using each other’s recollections of her memories as starting points. On their journeys, they have attempted to photograph the exact sites of her stories. Comparing the actual with figments of their imagination, they have discovered old haunts transformed beyond recognition, and yet bewitched to find some places unchanged by time. The Mother of All Journeys triggers a sense of repetition and nostalgia, invoking glimpses of the epochs we live through.
The exhibition links with Opera North’s new production of Madama Butterfly. In 1900’s Nagaskai a young geisha called Butterfly marries a visiting American naval officer, Lieutenant Pinkerton. His stay is temporary, but Butterfly firmly believes he will return. She waits faithfully, with only her son to keep her company. He does come back but not alone, he has married an American woman, and they have come to take home the young boy. Butterfly gives her son to her estranged husband, whilst taking her own life.
Dinu Li is a UK based artist, born in Hong Kong and living in Manchester. He has exhibited in the UK and internationally; recent exhibitions include University of North Texas Art Gallery, Kulturbunker Cologne, Victoria & Albert Museum London, Contact Photo Fest 05 Toronto, White Space 798 Beijing, the Liverpool Biennale 04 and a touring group show by Open Eye Gallery. He has been nominated for the prestigious new Northern Art Prize and his book was recently short-listed in the Recontres d'Arles Contemporary Photography Book Prize.
‘The Mother of All Journeys’ is a book published by Dewi Lewis Publishing and is available for purchase at a special exhibition price of £20.
Documentation of Dinu teaching 1st year BA(Hons) Art and Design Interdisciplinary students from Leeds College of Art and Design. Photographs by Lucy Gibson.
Images courtesy of the artist.
Stills from Chronicle of a Dream Foretold, film by Dinu Li. Screened on Light Night '07.
Press Release
Chronicle of a Dream Foretold by Dinu Li
Looped screening from 7pm – 11pm
(Film duration 20min 30sec and will start on the hour and half past the hour through the night)
Central Asian Project is a collaborative exchange organised by Cornerhouse (Manchester), SPACE (London), and AsiaArt+ (Almaty, Kazakhstan) dedicated to forging new links between the UK and Central Asia.
‘Chronicle of a Dream Foretold’ will be screened only on Light Night at 42 New Briggate, Leeds. Dinu Li’s exhibition ‘The Mother of All Journeys’ runs from September 18th to November 10th 2007 in the gallery.
Chronicle of a Dream Foretold is a video work made by Dinu Li during a residency in Kazakhstan for the Central Asian Project. It blurs the boundaries between documentary and fantasy. Inspired by Jean-Luc Goddard’s 1960’s film of The Rolling Stones’ rehearsing their song Sympathy for the Devil it shows a Kazakh rock band as they rehearse their latest song ‘Dreams’. This is combined with scenes such as footage of young men training to become equestrians, the flickering of images from a television set, time lapse footage of light passing through a snow covered landscape and montages of still photographs.
