Zhou Tao's 'Fán Dòng' at Lyon Biennale's Associated Exhibition

Zhou Tao's video 'Fán Dòng (The Worldly Cave)' (2017) is shown at La Halle des bouchers in Vienne as an associated exhibition of the 2019 Lyon Biennale, curated by Yoann Gourmel. The 47-minute 4K UHD film explores 'conflictual topographies' where natural and artificial meet, focusing on the Hakka diaspora. Tao documents places like China, South Korea, Minorca, and the US, blending them into a single, unidentifiable landscape. The work resonates with the Biennale's theme of 'landscape' as an entanglement of living and non-living, though it was not produced in situ. Unlike other Biennale venues (Fagor factories, Urdla), the Halle des bouchers is a modest stone space showing a single pre-existing work. Tao's film avoids narrative or judgment, presenting surreal scenes—a buffalo before defunct machines, a girl stacking bricks with pink rabbit ears, night fishermen—that evoke beauty and resilience. The circular motif echoes Hakka symbolism, suggesting survival across globalized pressures. The exhibition runs from September 14 to November 24, 2019.