We are pleased to announce the third in a series of new commissions during Summer, as part of a wider programme of support for artists during Covid 19.
Update: September 2021:
The artist is withdrawing from completing A Tale as Old as Time due to allegations of institutional racism at CFCCA. He is part of a group of artists calling for a defunding of the organisation.
Although his experience of working with the University of Salford Art Collection is positive, he feels the commission is currently untenable because the wider University is represented on the board of CFCCA.
Image: Grandville, J. and Forest, E. (1839-1842). Commerce Anglais. Lithograph, asset no. 106779001. © The Trustees of the British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/106779001. Translation: “You must buy this poison immediately. We want you to really poison yourselves, so that we will have enough tea to comfortably digest our beefsteaks!”
Artist Jack Tan has been commissioned by the University of Salford Art Collection to create Tale As Old As Time, a series of Bone China afternoon tea sets inspired by a 19th century tradition of British ceramics that commemorated major public disasters on functional pottery. As a contemporary iteration, this work highlights particular moments of disaster in Chinese civil rights history that tend to be overlooked in the broader Black and Asian histories as well as the official canons of Chinese history in the United Kingdom.
The tea set designs are inspired by a selection of tragic events from Chinese civil rights history in the UK over the last 200 years, notably: the Opium (or Tea) Wars (1839-60); the deported and disappeared Chinese seamen from Liverpool (late 1940s); the violent murders of takeaway workers Simon Tang (2013) and Migao Chen (2005); the mass Chinese deaths at Morecambe Bay (2004), Dover (2000) and Essex (2019); and the racialised response to the Foot & Mouth (2001) and Covid-19 (2020) epidemics.
Drawn together in this work, Tale As Old As Time makes visible a number of consistent themes and stresses experienced by the Chinese community over the years: isolation, vulnerability, rural racism, subjection to racist legislation, racial violence and murder, disposability of Chinese bodies and labour, and the association of Chineseness with disease. While these disasters do not exist in isolation from the struggles of the wider British Black and Asian communities, they draw attention to how overt and institutional racism manifests particularly for the Chinese in the UK.
The work will be ‘activated’ in 2021 as a ‘Chinese Civil Rights Tea Party’. Acting as conversation starters, the tea sets will invite participants into a performativity of tea-drinking and discussion which investigates contradictions in British politics, law and society today.
Artist Jack Tan says:
“Very often Chinese, East and Southeast Asian communities are viewed as trouble-free and inoffensive in Britain. We are good minorities because we work hard and ‘keep ourselves to ourselves’ I’ve heard it said. But our experience of racism is no less fraught or tragic or long; it is one where this inoffensiveness or politeness becomes both how we are perceived and also the manner through which we experience discrimination.”
An element of the work will be shared online later in July 2020. The final artwork will be displayed in the New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery, University of Salford at a date to be confirmed in 2021.
Lindsay Taylor, University of Salford Art Collection Curator, says:
“When building the Collection our aim is to tell a story of now to future generations. Covid-19 has been, and indeed remains a challenging time for many, and we want to reflect a number of stories of this time within our Collection. Jack’s work will encourage audiences to consider some of the important and uncomfortable histories within the UK. It will be a valuable addition to our permanent Collection”