Drawing as in walking as in mapping as in writing as in remembering

Here’s an interesting project by Chinese artist, Mengbo Feng. He uses his PDA and a GPS module to draw Chinese characters on city street maps as he walks.

Though the work is very different, the project reminded me of Wenda Gu’s work with Chinese characters and hair. Gu is a Chinese born conceptual artist living and working in N.Y. Several months ago he exhibited an installation that included curtains of hair with characters at UT’s Ewing Gallery as part of the group show Regeneration: Contemporary Chinese art from China and the US.

Gu also exhibited some of this work at the Hong Kong Museum of Art in 2006 as part of a dialogue with Mee-ping Leung, a friend and colleague of mine who came into CalArts the same year I did. We were both pursuing our MFAs when she began Memorize the Future, which grew in size over the years and went on to be exhibited in several venues. Both links show details of the installation which included hundreds of child-sized shoes molded from human hair.