Abstract
Between 2015 and 2020, artist Cao Fei occupied the former Beijing-based Hongxia Theatre, transforming the space into a vehicle for creative research, production and exhibition. This article will examine Cao Fei’s engagement with multiple temporalities as directly shaped by her spatial position within the theatre. Research related to the Hongxia Theatre and surrounding former People’s Republic of China (PRC)-era factory neighbourhood informs her understanding of not only China’s industrial history but also resurging connections to themes that exist across, within and beyond traditional temporal frameworks. The following narrative will employ Asia One (2018), the first full-length film made by Cao Fei since moving into the Hongxia Theatre, as a case study, highlighting strategies in which Hongxia fosters a pivotal spatial relationship between the artist’s new work and intersecting affinities towards time, memory and nostalgia. Drawing on China’s utopian past and dreams of a fully automated future, Asia One demonstrates a temporally nonlinear yearning to record both remembered and imagined emotional attachments, despite both globalizing and domestic conditions, which engender the urge to forget.
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