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Ascension review – surreally fascinating snapshots of ‘the Chinese dream’
From cutlery classes to hugging protocol, Jessica Kingdon’s portrait of modern China captures a ghostly world of aspiration, consumption and waste
In a business etiquette workshop designed to prepare prospective executives for potential encounters with their western counterparts, an instructor with a polished Stepford veneer briefs her class on hugging protocol and the correct number of teeth to show in a smile (the answer is eight). In a workshop in Zhongshan, a team of women lovingly craft bespoke silicone sex dolls.
Meanwhile, in a food processing plant, workers in fat-splattered aprons sift through piles of entrails and duck carcass off-cuts. Trainee butlers, destined to work for China’s new ultra-wealthy, are briefed on cutlery use and the importance of remaining impassive in the face of unreasonable behaviour. And in a deserted mall in a ghost city, built by developers but subsequently abandoned, stands the world’s saddest ostrich, alone in a bleak petting zoo, an attraction for the shoppers who never came.
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