Cao Fei, one of China‘s most successful contemporary female artists and a longtime collaborator with Prada, is set to launch a new multimedia-focused art exhibition at the Italian luxury brand’s Milan headquarters.
Titled “Dash,” Cao’s latest solo show is a culmination of almost five year’s research that delved into the smart agriculture world taking place across farmlands in southern and northwestern China, as well as Southeast Asia.
Combining mediums ranging from photography, video installation, virtual reality, documentary footage and archival material, the artist offers a nuanced portrait of the technological revolution and “its inherent contradictions,” Prada said in a press release.
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“This project reflects on how technology enhances efficiency, reduces labor and safeguards food security amid climate uncertainty and rural aging,” Prada said. “It also explores how algorithms are displacing traditional knowledge, reshaping human-land relationships, and changing rural-urban dynamics, raising concerns about ecology, employment and cultural continuity,” continued the press release.
“The project seeks to move beyond the linear narrative of ‘humans dominating technology and technology transforming nature,’ instead posing a different question: now that technology is deeply embedded in lived experience, can we reimagine a new contemporary form of unity between cosmos, human and technics?” the press release noted.
The exhibition will run from April 9 to Sept. 28.
Cao’s latest project began as a chance encounter in 2021, when Cao was connected with XAG, a Guangzhou-based agricultural robotics company.
Cao began creating a new body of work based on XAG’s projects, which used drones and driverless vehicles to populate farmlands.
“It is not a pastoral idyll of technology, but an archaeological gaze upon ‘agriculture as geological engineering,'” Cao said.
“Here, satellite positioning systems converse with ritual geographies; artificial intelligence and traditional experience train one another; historical images and sensor signals generate visual resonance,” Cao added.
The exhibition will occupy the gound floor and the first floor of the Podium, the central exhibition space of the Fondazione Prada’s compound. Several real-scale structures — including a grain warehouse, a new farmer station, a temple and a small banana plantation surrounded by smart agricultural equipment, solar energy panels and screens — will takeover the ground floor of the exhibition, where video works will be displayed.
Through documentary works and material, the exhibition outlines the complex interplay between traditional Chinese philosophies and the new worldview forged by intelligent machines.
The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated book with an introduction by Miuccia Prada, president and director of Fondazione Prada, a conversation between Cao and Rem Koolhaas, the architect who has developed with OMA an extensive research on countryside since 2012.
The book will also include a science fiction story by Cao, and a series of interviews and essays featuring scholars, curators, experts, including ones from the XAG team, and farmers.
Born in Guangzhou and based in Beijing, the 47-year-old Cao is known for her work that probes into the human condition amid technological transformation.
Cao has worked with Prada on its fall 2019 men’s advertising campaign, which was also a special project called “Code Human,” and has participated in various group shows organized by Fondazione Prada.