When The Pigs Fly, Yinchuan Biennale, 2017
When The Pigs Fly addresses the heavy cost to the environment that rapid growth and capitalism has caused, particularly within the context of China. Production of approximately 100 clay pigs with wings took place in Yinchuan with a team of 10 volunteer clay craftsmen. All the pigs were made of clay from the Yellow River.
According to the International Monetary Fund, as of 2014, China is the world’s second-largest economy in terms of nominal GDP, totaling approximately US$10.380 trillion. With this dramatic economic expansion, China suffers from severe environmental deterioration and pollution.
On 25 November 2008, Tania Branigan of The Guardian filed a report titled “China’s Mother River: the Yellow River,” claiming that severe pollution had made one-third of China’s Yellow River unusable even for agricultural or industrial use, mainly due to factory discharges and sewage from fast-expanding cities. The Yellow River Conservancy Commission had surveyed more than 13,493km of the river in 2007 and found that 33.8% of the river system registered worse than “level five” according to the criteria used by the UN Environment Program: unfit for drinking, aquaculture, industrial use, and agriculture.
Traditionally, it is believed that Chinese civilization originated in the Yellow River basin. The Chinese refer to the river as “the Mother River” and “the cradle of the Chinese civilization.” During China’s long history, the Yellow River was considered a blessing as well as a curse and has been nicknamed both “China’s Pride” and “China’s Sorrow.” The river signifies both life and death to the Chinese.
Sometimes the Yellow River is poetically called the “Muddy Flow.” The Chinese idiom “when the Yellow River flows clear” is used to refer to an event that will never happen and is similar to the English expression “when pigs fly.”
“The Yellow River running clear” was reported as a good omen during the reign of the Yongle Emperor, along with the appearance of such auspicious legendary beasts as qilin. The image of the conveyor belt mimics that of big beast, qilin, (the African giraffe), seen when the river ran clear.
When The Pigs Fly suggests an impossible event or wishful thinking and urges the viewer to consider the irreversible damage that has been inflicted on this earth.