Great Expectations – Helen Marshall & Lu Fei Fei - London & Beijing 2007

New Work between Helen Marshall & Lu Fei Fei, Britain & China 2006-2007

Great Expectations is a series of photographs made during 2006 & 2007 as a result of an unexpected collaboration with Lu Feifei an artist and writer living and working in Beijing. The resulting work is a series of photographs shot on location consecutively in London and Beijing and stage both themselves and other women who have volunteered to be in the project.

"Although more and more international artists are showing in Beijing’s art scene, collaborative works between Chinese and overseas artists seem rare, although in fact within the international art platform such co-operations between different cultural backgrounds and mutual understanding are quite common. With the rapid growth of the internationalism and globalisation of Chinese contemporary art, I believe that there will be more and more artistic collaborations. Lu Feifei and Helen Marshall are in a sense therefore forerunners.

In today’s global era linked by internet and international flights, the global tendencies of tolerance often obscure the actual local culture. This is a new melting pot where all local and foreign things should have a survival space as only through this can a true global perspective of contemporary culture and art be developed."

Zhang Zhaohui Art Critic Beijing