Made in China is a video installation that features two simultaneous video streams being projected onto two faces on one projector screen. On one side of the screen audiences will see a classical erhu recital by a young Chinese lady; on the other side of the screen an animation outlines a true story of a Chinese migrant worker who moved away from home to work in a factory in an urban city environment. The two stories are open to interpretation, but it is not hard to spot Jackson’s intention to use the two stories and two projections combination to shed light on the unseen populations behind economic developments and to address issues related to urbanisation, migration and more.

The animated story was covered in the New York Times which captured Jackson's attention - it is a typical story of a poor young woman moving from her rural home for work to support her family. Having to produce 400 eyelashes per month, while 464 strands of inch-long human hair crisscrossed together makes only one piece of eyelash, the harsh treatment received in the workplace and the unbearable living conditions  called for her to break free.  Juxtaposing on the other face on the screen, the erhu recital seems unrelated to the animated story of the factory worker. Jackson subconsciously tried to tie together the two anecdotes based on the characters' origins, their encounters with hair (eyelashes and the erhu strings), their links with labour that creates aesthetic outcomes. The erhu player moved from China to London to play music with an English teacher. The musician was filmed over nine months of repetitive, tedious, demanding rehearsals culminating in just one short six-minute recital. She chose the repetitive labour as an external discipline which led to her internal freedom that ended up in alienation - playing a strange instrument in a strange land and discovering her roots and culture from a foreign music instructor. For the factory worker, meeting the quota of 400 eyelashes each month once gave her the hope that she would gain economic and social freedom, however, it ultimately ended too in alienation.

Made in China is UK artist Melanie Jackson's latest work. This video installation has recently been shown in the Matt's Gallery in the UK. Following its display in Hong Kong, Made in China is scheduled to be shown in Shanghai in September 2005 when Melanie Jackson takes up her residency in China under the Arts Council and British Council co-organised Artist Links programme.

Enquiries: madeinchina@britishcouncil.org.hk

Exclusive interview with Melanie Jackson

(by Davide Quadrio, Q: Davide Quadrio, A: Melanie Jackson)

Q: What was it that first led to you the 'Chinese story'?

A: I made a piece a few years ago which was about ways in which people find to make space when there is seemingly none for them. I heard about the tens of thousands of domestic maids from the Philippines who sit under the HSBC headquarters in Hong Kong on a Sunday to meet friends, eat and exchange news from home. I asked an artist from Hong Kong to film them for me so I could 'see' them. Later I got an opportunity to visit and retread the route of the film that I had commissioned. Whilst I was there I became intrigued with the role of Hong Kong historically sited between mainland China and the UK. I read the news story that inspired the animation whilst I was in Hong Kong, whilst I was thinking about these relationships, and the way that most manufactured goods in the UK are made in China.

Q: Can you say something about the process and the timeframe behind the making of the work and why you chose to use animation and video in particular?

A: I wanted to make an animation of this particular news story because I could only imagine it. This was a 'real' happening but one that took place away from the news cameras. Therefore, the alternative of reconstructing the event would have made it melodramatic.

Though the story is real and unfortunately commonplace - the escape from the window also has a ring of fantasy about it - (Mark Harris likens it to the fairytale Rapunzel). I wanted to draw it also because the process of animation, like the making of the eyelashes themselves, is terribly slow and painstaking. Again, in this work I asked an artist who was working in China to take photographs for me of all the places I wanted to 'go'; rural houses, family scenes, factories, subways and so on. I made my animated drawings from these pictures.

I was also interested in Made in China in the notion of time - blinking - cuts - repetitions and so on. The two videos pieces in the work Made in China are very different. One was shot over nine months and edited together - and the other was a straight through recital with a single tracking camera shot. I wanted the two moving pictures to run at the same time and together but never be seen together.

The erhu soundtrack accompanies both of them.

Q: What did you discover about China and how did this inspire the piece?

A: Although the piece is a story set in China it is actually about work and production and performance and tradition. Also about how to make sense of a story to which you are connected - but from a place you have never been to.

The UK is closely linked to China - we rely heavily on it for all our consumer goods. We may think we know little about the culture - but the culture in China must be affected by the mass of manufacture for export. There are obviously aspects of visual and musical culture that inspire me too - and I was interested in how these are positioned next to all the other kinds of production. I did not want to try and tell any kind of essentialist truth about the country. I found it intriguing that Colin Huehns, the erhu teacher, had such deep knowledge of Chinese music and was teaching students of Chinese origin. In terms of global opportunity it seems that for the Chinese students a UK college degree had more worth than a Chinese one.