Film Screening: "Whose Utopia" by Cao Fei

Cao Fei’s 2006 video Whose Utopia highlights the workforce at the OSRAM lighting factory located in China’s Pearl River Delta region. At the time the film was made, OSRAM was one of the largest manufacturers of light bulbs in the world. Fei created the work during her six-month artist residency at the factory. She filmed daily activities, documented the production process and collaborated with workers to develop a variety of performances that were staged and filmed within the factory.

As the video unfolds, documentation of the production line evolves into surreal performances by the workers. Each person transforms into a character of their own design—from a ballerina to a tai chi master. They dance or play music, while the production of light bulbs continues to happen all around them. The aim, according to Fei, was to “release the workers from a standardized notion of productivity.” Her poetic intervention into the factory creates moments that transform an industrial, highly controlled, impersonal space into a fluid arena for self-expression.