Song Dong’s Communal Courtyard

Transforming the AGO’s Signy Eaton Gallery into a series of snaking walkways and small rooms reminiscent of Beijing’s traditional communal living spaces, the exhibition Song Dong’s Communal Courtyard invites visitors to lose themselves inside a unique installation of 100 vintage Chinese wardrobe doors.

Evocative of the contemporary urban experience from Beijing to Toronto, in which traditional architectures and ways of living together are being threatened by rapid growth, this thoughtful, playful and materially rich installation—itself titled Wisdom of the Poor: Communal Courtyard—invites audiences to reconsider how we might hold onto some elements of tradition while radically reimagining them for the present.

Song Dong is a Beijing-based multidisciplinary artist and leading figure within the Chinese avant-garde. The work presented in Song Dong’s Communal Courtyardis part of the artist’s long-running series The Wisdom of the Poor and makes its Canadian debut at the AGO.

Photo courtesy of the organiser/s

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