Creative Journeys: Beijing with curator Ruby Arrowsmith-Todd

In a new series inspired by the Art Gallery's partnership with Singapore Airlines, we're sharing insights and recommendations from our art museum team members as they travel in service of our international art exhibitions and experiences.

1. Who are you and what is your role at the Art Gallery?

My name is Ruby Arrowsmith-Todd and I’m the curator of film at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney. I run a popular cinematheque and work with artists on moving image commissions. I’m co-curator of the current exhibition Cao Fei: My City is Yours 曹斐: 欢迎, a major retrospective of the Beijing-based artist Cao Fei which runs until 13 April 2025.??

2. What was the purpose of your trip to Beijing?

My co-curator Yin Cao and I visited Cao Fei in Beijing in late 2023 and had the privilege of getting to know the artist’s work intimately. We ate together, visited some of her favourite neighbourhoods, and met her studio chicken, Xiaohong. China has a thriving arts scene, so we also took the opportunity to conduct studio visits with artists such as Geng Xue and Wang Tuo.

3. If someone only had 24 hours to spend in Beijing what is the one sight they cannot miss?

We spent many hours wandering around the galleries at the 798 Art District in Chaoyang. But perhaps my favourite, under-the-radar recommendation is Beijing World Park, a surreal theme park with over 100 replicas of world-famous buildings and historic sites like the Eiffel Tower and Sydney Opera House. The park was the backdrop to director Jia Zhangke’s The World (2004), a wondrous film starring one of my favourite actors Zhao Tao.

4. It takes approximately 15 hours to travel from Sydney to Beijing – including stopovers! – so what is your favourite way to pass the time on a long haul flight?

Unsurprisingly, I spent my time watching movies. I decided to watch Deliverance (1972) for the first time, while Yin wisely chose a rom-com. I also spent the flight reading Leslie Chang’s Factory Girls: Voices from the Heart of Modern China (2010), an excellent account of young migrant workers in southern China at the turn of the new millennium.? One of Cao Fei’s key early works, Whose Utopia (2006), also explores the topic of internal migration and factory work, so I was keen to learn more.

5. Cao Fei: My City is Yours is opening at the Art Gallery of New South Wales on 30 November. What would you like visitors to take away from this exhibition?

My City is Yours?欢迎登陆 is an invitation into a world of neon, street dance and pop music; a world both familiar and warped, real and virtual. The experience should feel like wandering through a new city. Visitors enter the exhibition via a replica 1960s Beijing cinema foyer, and exit through a homage to a popular Sydney yum cha restaurant.??The exhibition space has been designed by Cao Fei and Beau Architects of Hong Kong, exclusively for Sydney this summer. We hope to see you there.?

Find out more about the visionary art of Cao Fei – who was recently voted one of the most influential artists in the world – and book tickets for Cao Fei: My City is Yours at the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney this summer: https://bit.ly/4aNjsYi

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Singapore Airlines are the official airline partner of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in support of the Art Gallery's program of international art exhibitions and cultural experiences. Singapore Airlines operates 21 flights a week to Beijing via Singapore. Learn more: Singaporeair.com