Richard Layzell Blog

The Shanghai artist Shaw (Zhifeng Xu) arrives in London. His square mile is in Leyton. We decide to meet and compare notes and maps, before I fly to Shanghai the following day. I chose the Bethnal Green cafe E. Pellici for a breakfast rendezvous before meeting my performance group at Wimbledon College of Art for a farewell session.

Meeting Shaw at E Pellici, E2

The performance group at [...]

I spend an afternoon in Chinatown. I ask around for a map of Shanghai and a plug adaptor — UK to China — but no luck. Although in the bookshop I find a map of the whole land mass, a serious map of China. I photograph it in a stone plant container that may also be authentically Chinese in style:

Map of China in Chinatown

This is not Shanghai.  But are there memes or signifiers here that may be transferrable? The posture of this [...]