The China Project

171 Three Decades: The Contemporary Chinese Collection QIN Ga In Qin Ga’s The miniature long march 2002–05 project, the Mongolian-born artist engages with the Long March of 1934–35, one of the most mythologised events in Chinese cultural history, when the communist Red Armies retreated to evade the Chinese Nationalist Party’s Kuomintang Army. Creating a detailed tattoo to record his own retracing of this epic journey, Qin Ga’s performance project confronts this historic event in a direct and personal way. Like the historical Long March, the creation of The miniature long march took place over a period of time and in stages. Qin Ga began creating the work in 2002 as part of the Long March Project’s ‘Walking Visual Display’. 1 This groundbreaking project involved a number of artists physically retracing the soldiers’ original journey across China. Communicating with these artists from Beijing, Qin Ga recorded their movements with a series of dots on a map of mainland China tattooed across his back. When they abandoned their journey at Luding Bridge in Sichuan Province, Qin Ga’s tattoo remained temporarily unfinished. It was not until 2005, when Qin Ga undertook the remaining journey from Luding Bridge to Yan’an Province with his tattooist and cameramen, that the tattoo was resumed and completed. Qin Ga’s choice of the tattoo as a medium is important; tattoos are often stigmatised in traditional Chinese society, in which the body is regarded as a temple. Marks on the body are serious transgressions that transfer to other family members. Using his body as a canvas, Qin Ga is physically marked by each stage of his journey, and such marks suggest that the experience and outcome of the original Long March have had profound intergenerational consequences. In much the same way as the Communist Party of China assiduously documented local responses to the original Long March, the videos, photographs and diaries Qin Ga created en route record local and personal responses to his project and, more particularly, to the tattoo on his back. These responses include contemporary opinions about the Long March and the experience of communism in China. Often emotionally charged, they reveal the continuing importance of the Long March as a poignant moment in Chinese history. In relocating artists, audiences and local participants in relation to representations of this social history, his work asks questions about the importance and meaning of the Long March legacy. To Qin Ga, whether the event is understood as a retreat or a heroic journey it is still a profound story of bodies transformed. 2 endnotes 1 Initiated in 2002, the Long March Project is an ongoing initiative that organises international exhibitions, community-based programs and artist residencies. 2 Rachel O’Reilly, ‘A story of bodies transformed’ in The 5th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art [exhibition catalogue], Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2006, p.133. opposite The miniature long march (detail) 2002–05 Type C photographs, ed. 2/5 / 23 sheets: 75.5 x 55cm (each) / Purchased 2007. The Queensland Government’s Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund above The miniature long march sites 1-23 (still) 2002–05 Betacam SP, 40:20 minutes, colour, stereo, ed. of 8 / Purchased 2007. The Queensland Government’s Gallery of Modern Art Acquisitions Fund