nice soundtrack too

Forbidden City is an experimental piece combining traditional Chinese cut paper and digital animation techniques, which unveils the unspeakable reality in contemporary history of China.

The scene is set in a serene, traditional interior of a teahouse near Forbidden City in Beijing. The thousand-year-old place looks seemingly steady, peaceful, where a cup of green tea is steaming under sunshine. The window panel, a metaphor of the boundary between social surrounding and individual’s inner world, is decorated with a popular Chinese symbol of “prosperity.” When the red “prosperity” is falling and music suddenly turns to inharmonious, another layer of facts is revealed – the vital confrontation between individual and authority, that is symbolized by “tankman,” the taboo in today’s China.

Toward the end of the film, everything becomes vanished, the blood-like substance transforms to steam turning back into the cup of green tea, and the auspicious “prosperity” character flies back to the window, which again contribute to the peaceful, harmonious atmosphere around Forbidden City. Only the covered facts are left for us, who happened to experience the incident first-hand, or whoever cares its social, historical effects on a global culture, to taste.

Formally, in order to create an aesthetic space where history and the contemporary encounter each other, digital animation techniques have been combined with traditional folk art form, Chinese Cut Paper. The static cut paper imagery then is transformed to moving images for multi-layered narratives. Our interest is to convey serious social and cultural significance associated with folk art, a distinctive form of human expression.. In Forbidden City, Cut Paper is referred to not only an ancient, auspicious symbolic art, but also adapted to propaganda needs throughout contemporary Chinese political life.

The music, composed and performed by American musician Williams David and Nicholas Thibault, is adapted from an ancient Chinese qin melody, Guangling San, which is regarded as a piece of classical “dissident art.”

Designed by Carlo Giovani | Country: Brazil

Taking on the absurd intricacy, the unique teapot by Cincinnati-based freelance designer Michael Morarity draws inspiration from steampunk to divulge the sham sophistication of the modern era through an art work. Featuring a temperature gauge, spout cover with release key and a percolation window, the steampunk teapot not only prepares tea for you, but also brings the elegance of the Victorian era to your home appliance. “Tea is inserted via the top ‘hatch’ and when the temperature is high enough, the release key that controls an internal seal is manually pulled and hot water percolates through, rotating the key as it does so.”

reminds me of a russian samovar