iHayward GallerySouth Bank
Cao Fei
The Chinese multimedia artist's largest UK solo exhibition to date, tracing her practice from the early 2000s to the present across five thematic chapters, including Whose Utopia, RMB City, Asia One and the new work The Birth.
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Preview: written before the show opened
The newest work here is a shrine. The Birth (2026) is a woven, temple-like structure built from fertiliser sacks, harvest props and paper banners, and its three screens follow the drones now used on farms across China and Southeast Asia, set against old rituals like burning incense. It is the work's first showing in the UK.
Around it, five chapters cover Cao's work from the early 2000s on. At one point you walk into a factory dormitory, cardboard boxes and a cluttered bunk bed, beside Whose Utopia (2006), her film of lightbulb factory workers acting out their private dreams. RMB City is the city she built in Second Life as the avatar China Tracy, and Super Delivery (2024) is a Super Mario-style work you actually play.
Allow time for the films: Asia One alone runs 63 minutes. Tickets are £19, members free. Members book from 21 October and general sale opens on 22 October at 10am. It's closed Mondays and open until 8pm on Saturdays.
Look for
The Birth (2026)
A woven, temple-like shrine of fertiliser sacks, harvest props and paper banners holds a three-channel film about drones on farms in China and Southeast Asia.
Whose Utopia (2006)
Part of the gallery becomes a factory dormitory with cardboard boxes and a cluttered bunk bed, beside a film of lightbulb factory workers acting out their dreams.
RMB City (2007 to 2011)
A whole virtual city built in Second Life, where Cao's avatar China Tracy invited players around the world to help construct it.
Super Delivery (2024)
A playable work that joins the physical room to a Super Mario-style digital world.
Meta-mentary (2022)
Cao asks people where they think the Metaverse actually is, and films their answers.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Teenagers
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Image credits
8
- Cao FeiCourtesy of Hayward Gallery
- Salman Toor: Someone Like You© Salman Toor; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and Thomas Dane Gallery. Photo: Genevieve Hanson
- Winifred Gill: A Bloomsbury Pioneer© Bodleian, Oxford
- Hayward GalleryMykReeve / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Courtauld GalleryAnthony O'Neil / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
- London Transport MuseumColin Park / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- National GalleryCarlos Delgado / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- National Portrait GalleryIstvánka / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0