Lu Xinjian is a Chinese artist currently based in Shanghai. Amanda was asked to curate an art commission for the new Connection development by Canada Bay Council along Sydney Harbour and it was her desire to reflect the local community who are predominately of Chinese and Korean descent, and the site's history of migration. Lu Xinjian was selected from an international and Australia shortlist of artists to create his first and only commission to date in Australia.

Lu Xinjian is an internationally renowned artist who's work explores abstract representations of the modern metropolis. His City DNA series uses a highly personal suite of symbols and lines to create an abstract artwork from the starting point of a satellite image of place from google earth. For The Connection, he created City DNA Rhodes, an eight-meter long bright blue acrylic screen perforated with his designs based upon abstractions of street and land formations from Google Earth’s view of Rhodes from his home in Shanghai. Various landmarks are slowly revealed as the viewer participates in a play of gradual recognition and familiarity. Not only does this artwork reference the site specifically, it also alludes to how we understand and make sense of our world through technology. Here, technology has compressed space and the physical and psychological distance one feels through the physical act of migration. Xinjian also created Wired Space, a suspended installation of artworks referencing the local ecology of Rhodes. City DNA and Wired Space are part of a public art program curated by Sharrad, including works by Caroline Rothwell and Brook Andrew. 

Images: Canada Bay Council