Guan Xiao’s work A Trip (2011) is part of the artist’s series My Documentary, a collection of videos shot in different locations using a variety of equipment. Guan selects everyday environments in foreign locations that are to become part of the series, where minor adjustments are made without changing existing spatial structures. The technology with which to film is selected at random and any artistic process improvised. Each work is filmed in a single camera shot that remains unedited.

A Trip was filmed in Thailand, in a river slum, where the flimsy wooden walls of houses form corridors that are covered in local graffiti. The video is one long camera shot of the artist navigating through the tunnels. Back in Beijing, Guan noticed a single BMW logo appearing on the walls, amidst local writing, considered emblematic of global “random mixing and matching”; something the artist decided to emphasise by highlighting and then fixating the image on the screen. The artwork belongs to the Déjà Vu collection curated by LEAP LABS.

Guan Xiao lives and works in Beijing.