‘Yiwu Survey’ made by the Chinese artist Liu Jianhua in 2004. It represents the huge amount of cheap stuff produced in the Provence Yiwu.
This work is intended to present the social phenomena of China, regarding the problems of labour and mass-produced commodities. It welcomes audience to ponder over the socio-economic issues and attempts to bring further explorations.
Excerpted from a description written by Liu Jianhua:
‘More than two decades ago, no one ever imagined that Chinese economy would have influenced the world’s economy so greatly, and would have been exerting a persistent and far-reaching impact on it. Yiwu is a typical epitome of the development mode with Chinese characteristics. The commodities that are produced by or converge at Yiwu have reached 212 countries or regions all over the world. Each day witnesses 6000-8000 foreign businesspeople purchasing goods, and over 1000 outbound containers (standard) directly departing from Yiwu. However, you cannot just translate Yiwu into a centre for commodity wholesaling and converging as well as exported goods processing according to its current situations. All of these are just a representation. Yiwu itself represents all the unexpected complexities that occur in the dialogue between China during its new social reforms and the world. The perfect combination of functionality and popular aesthetics, of popular culture, low-cost and low energy consumed materials processing and labour-intensive production can be found in all commodity designs, which are the most typical representation of popular aesthetics and embody the richest social formations of China in the new social transition. It is these cheap goods from China that decreases the global inflation and alters the relative prices of labour, capital, goods and assets. The cheap exported goods offset the price increases caused by the sky-rocketing oil prices, and thus they correlate with societies, families and individuals. These goods have affected the public tastes and sentimentalities and will continue to do so in a long run…’
