Why Call It A Biennial?

Biennials have for long now been the conglomerate of the 'international art scene' where the art world meet and exchange artistic values with each other. In the current notion of geopolitics and globalisation that exclusivity the biennials represent is almost grotesque. Most biennials are not about cultural, social, political exchange and dialogue, they are about money and market values, so we used the term, to deliberately question the phenomena and then point to the focus of real exchange, proximity and dialogue within this project.

Fung Wah Biennial

In March 2016, Flux Factory commissioned 25 US-based and international artists / artist groups to create site-specific works for three Chinatown bus routes in the North-Eastern United States for the inaugural Fung Wah Biennial.

During trips to Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore artists will share performances, projections, sound-works, web-based projects, and other social interventions that amplify experiences or tease out the nuanced politics of transit.

On each Saturday in March, a bus will depart from NYC to venture to a new city and back. Artists were invited to create works in response to the history and infrastructure of these particular bus lines, as well as the physical and emotional experience of travel. Some works look at transit through the lens of leisure, or challenge its banality and isolation, while others contend with migration as an act of necessity or survival. The works will be presented on the bus while en route to and from their respective destinations, as well as on the ground in each city. The audience will comprise of mostly knowing Fung Wah Biennial exhibition participants, however it may also include those who are simply traveling on each selected bus (i.e. innocent bystanders).

The impetus for this exhibition is three-fold: The impending migration of most emerging art spaces in New York City due to increasing cost of living; The experience of travel whether for leisure or out of necessity; The incredible, inexpensive network of buses between Chinatowns in the Northeastern U.S. and beyond, and especially honoring the closure of the original company in 2015, Fung Wah Bus line.