Kazmi's “Urban Forest” in Shenzhen, China
Asma Kazmi, "Urban Forest", 2020, metal and augmented reality
Asma Kazmi, assistant professor in Art Practice and BCNM installed a new media art project called Urban Forest at the Oh Bay Coastal Culture Park, Shenzhen, China. This permanent large-scale metal and augmented reality sculpture creates a contradictory and unusual juxtaposition of construction scaffolding wrapped around Mangifera Indica (Indian mango) trees.
The stylized mango tree form is borrowed from a 17th century Mughal miniature painting, and placed in contemporary China to trouble our ideas about urbanism and nature while also reminding us of linkages between distant lands through trade and the global movement of plants and technologies.