MAP Office: The Parrot's Tale

How should Hong Kong be represented? This question found an answer through Concrete Jungle/The Parrot's Tale, a large-scale installation by MAP Office (otherwise known as the Hong Kong-based French architecture team Gutierrez + Portefaix) for the 2007 Venice Biennale. Beginning with a steamy, mist-filled island, roughly in the shape of Hong Kong, that was covered in oyster shells and inhabited by fake talking parrots, the work problematized the act of representation itself. This volume is an extension of MAP's Venice project and includes documentation of the complex process behind the fabrication of this much-talked-about artwork. Critical dialogues with Beijing artist Ai Weiwei complete the picture.MAP Officespecializes in critical analyses of spatial and temporal anomalies, and works to document the ways in which human beings subvert and appropriate spaces for their own uses.