Chosen artist:
Dinu Li is exhibiting a display cabinet that was originally discovered standing defiantly upright, yet alone inside Chester Market. Upon the end of its tenure, the marketer had stripped his stall bare, leaving behind the cabinet that makes up the front façade.There is a formal quality to the cabinet, constructed as four separate display components, forming a complete hexagonal unit when all four parts are joined up. The emptied out glass display alludes to a range of existential concerns; conjuring up notions of our need to possess and to show off our assets, yet the potential lack of contentment once we have obtained the things we most desire. 
Exhibition area / space / object:
I went to the Hunter Gatherer exhibition at Project Space Leeds.
I saw a Chinese shop - I knew that the piece was from a market space in Chester and that if anything was Chinese about it, it would be that it sold chinese things like tea.
There was tape laid out on the floor which gave the impression of a shop space and that a one point there would have been glass walls there.
It was really dirty – it looked old and dusty not like you expect a shop to be – abandoned and empty like it had be robbed of all the stock a long time ago.
I understand that the artist took the whole thing – the loose objects in the cabinet – everything - and moved it to the exhibition in Leeds.
It gives people viewing the piece the opportunity to use their imagination – to imagine what might have been once upon a time.
What do you think it represents?
A small shop – not a chain of stores – owned by one person – I think it represents a business woman selling clothing, tea cups, spoons all things Chinese – very posh – individual – unique.
Why do you think it was chosen?
Because it interested the artist – perhaps he found it was old and strange and he found it really interesting, intreging. And that there is a connection to his life in Hong Kong because the word ‘CHINA’ is in silver on the cabinet tops.
What is it’s relationship to the other objects?
I think that this piece links to the other objects in the exhibition in a way that the artists find objects but then add and arrange them with other, extra new things to make the art exhibit.
There were some glass objects that I could imagine as things that might be sold there.
Like and dislike?
I like the combination of black and silver, I liked the reflective quality of the chrome frame and the sparkley stenciled letters too.
Even though it is old it gave me a feeling of the future too. Something robotic – I felt inspired by it – it made me want to make futuristic clothes, wear futuristic make up and listen to robotic music.
I didn’t like that it was so dusty and dirty – it made me sneeze – it made it look poor, from an inpoverished area – you could really wipe your finger through the dirt – it made me cringe.
Maybe it’s a girly thing, but I wanted to clean it all up.
