Sam Hopkins, David Lalé, GZ Calling, installation view, Eva Maria Ocherbauer 2017.
Sam Hopkins
Born Rome, Italy (1979), lives and works between Nairobi, Kenya and Cologne, Germany
David Lalé
Born in the United Kingdom (year), lives and works in Oxford, United Kingdom
GZ Calling 2017
3-channel video installation
9.17mins
Courtesy of the artists
GZ Calling is a 3-channel video installation that explores the labyrinthine world-within-a-world of African migrant traders working in the export markets of Guangzhou – the new capital of South-South trade, and the nexus of emergent 21st Century global capitalism.
Background
Guangzhou, the tropical manufacturing mecca in South China forms part of the largest city on Earth, a metropolitan region of more than 50 million inhabitants. Every year $200 billion of goods flow out of here to markets in the Global South. Meanwhile, thousands of entrepreneurial Africans move in the opposite direction, hoping to make their fortunes in the city’s booming export business.
A new kind of capitalism is emerging from this fertile South-South trade. Guangzhou is the manufacturing base not only for premium international brands, but also for cheap Chinese copies and low-quality fakes. This landscape is not shaped by the large-scale deals of multinational corporations but by the ‘low-end globalization’ of small-scale traders. Doing business in cash, and transporting goods across continents in shipping containers or carry-on luggage, they operate beyond the reach of copyright law and Customs and Excise. Here, traders from Africa explore and exploit their interstitial advantages to profit from a system from which, for so long, they have been excluded.
Guangzhou’s downtown migrant enclave is known by locals as “Chocolate City” for its thriving community of African expats. No one knows how many are here – estimates range between 20,000 and 200,000. This is a world of mavericks and risk-takers; a few will strike it rich, but many others will return home with nothing. The difference between profit and loss lies in their delicate relationships with Chinese counterparts – relationships complicated by language barriers and cultural misunderstanding.
