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M+, Hong Kong, © Ni Haifeng
Ni Haifeng 倪海峰
No Man’s Land No. 2 無人之城二號
1999–2001
This photograph depicts sunset at a miniature version of Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, with aeroplanes of various national carriers parked on the apron. In the late 1990s, Ni Haifeng began No Man’s Land, a series of photographs taken at Madurodam, a tourist attraction in The Hague that features miniature replicas of Dutch landmarks. Ni photographed scenes that appear modern and anonymous, as if they could have taken place at a major airport anywhere in the world. For the artist, Madurodam reflects a desire to create an idealised representation of Dutch culture. Similarly, No Man’s Land demonstrates the ability of photography to achieve an ideal, by leaving out much of the surrounding scene that would reveal reality—namely, the miniature scale of the subject. Ni produced the series at a time when Chinese contemporary art was becoming better known on the world stage, and when artists were beginning to travel internationally with greater frequency. As the title suggests, the photographs depict a liminal place, presenting the airport as both a node of global connectedness and as an enclosed world of its own.
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