Ge Feng

Ge Feng is an illustrator and visual artist, currently working and living in Shanghai and London. Ge completed her BA in Fashion Design from Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology. Her work often starts from thinking about the conflict between the individual and the environment, and combines drawing, printmaking and moving images.

Exhibitions:

2021 Journey of Water, World Wide Fund for Nature, Shanghai

2021 Work in Progress, Royal College of Art, London

2021 Reading the Colonel, Tenderbooks, London

2019 Asia Illustration Fair, Powerlong Museum, Shanghai

2018 Fragmentations, Untitled Space, Shanghai

We Connect with the Outside World is a research project that began during the COVID-19 pandemic, based on the phenomena of Google Street View tourism. Here I invited a series of guests to use Google Street View to travel to places that cannot be visited due to the global restrictions. It is a reflection on the 'reality' that exists on the Internet. The project began with the endless anxiety and worry I felt during the period of isolation. When we are trapped indoors, we can still receive most information via the screen, and yet we still feel anxious and out of touch. The series of documentaries and drawings ask questions about what is real in the context of the internet and how can we adjust to the restrictions and new possibilities of living through the screens.

In the first episode an illustrator and a photographer travel to Athens via Google Street View. During two days of virtual travel they discussed the potential for image creation within the platform, attempted to create drawings and photographic images as they would while physically travelling to the same city.

Guests: Luyao Shi, Ge Feng

Medium: Documentary

Duration: 06’22’’

The second episode records three friends using Google Street View to take a detailed, planned trip to Paris that is made impossible by the pandemic. This episode examines the process of travelling with friends online, the familiar relaxed atmosphere of the meeting exposes gaps in the possibilities of their on-screen experiences.

Guest: Mercy Phu, Qihang Sun, Ge Feng

Medium: Documentary

Duration: 06’46’’

documentary Film Google map Location virtual

The guests in the third episode are a couple, and unlike previous guests, they present a very positive attitude towards their virtual life together. The episode describes how Google Street View and other network communication platforms have shaped their close relationship while living in different continents.

Guest: Lili Chen, Shangshu Zhao

Medium: Documentary

Duration: 08’11’’

documentary face time Film Google map Location travel virtual zoom meeting

These drawings are created from observations of screenshots taken during virtual travel. They play with the idea of the artist being present in a scene, observing and recording. Here the artist sits in her room perceiving the scenery via the screen. The work considers what is gained and lost by this process, and what and how is communicated to the viewer.

Digital Drawing Google map travel virtual

Ge Feng

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Royal College of Art