Emerged on the international scene in early 2000s, Cao Fei has since exhibited in biennials and museums worldwide—most recently at the Tate Modern in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. As a pioneer in multi-media installations in China, she draws inspirations from the lifestyle of Chinese youth of her generation, who grew up with pop culture (e.g. Hip-Hop, Hong Kong films), new technologies, and electronic and online games. Cao explores with great versatility a variety of mediums: video, photography, theater, film, 3D animation, writing and so on. Exhibited for the first time in the 2007 Lyon Biennale, the “Nu Project” (“nu” is the name of a river in Yunnan, and means literally “anger”) is composed of materials (footage, scripts, photos) from an originally government-funded but eventually called-off feature film project on the province of Yunnan, in Southwest China. For this work conceived as a travelogue, Cao Fei traveled with three young people throughout Yunnan in 2006, and documented their life “on the road” with a digital video recorder: their daily encounters with the beautiful landscape, their conversations, feelings as well as disillusions about their cities, jobs, etc. The journey ended up being a metaphor of life's journey, a questioning of the value of individual's life in a fast-changing and chaotic Chinese society, but also a poignant commentary on the impact of China's ambitious development project (i.e. the construction of a dozen dams on the Nu river) on the environment and people's life.
曹斐於2000年代初期崛起於國際藝壇，自此參加世
界各地雙年展和美術館展覽—最近作品甫現身倫敦泰特現
代美術館和巴黎蓬皮杜中心。作為中國多媒體裝置的先驅
者，曹斐從中國年輕人的生活方式汲取創作靈感，他們這
一代人的成長過程深受大眾流行文化（如嘻哈音樂、香港
電影）、新科技、電玩與線上遊戲的影響。曹斐靈活巧妙
地探索和使用不同媒介：錄像、攝影、戲劇、電影、三維
動畫、寫作等等。《怒江計劃》於2007年法國里昂雙年
展首次公開展出。這件多媒體裝置由影像片段、腳本、相
片組成，原先為政府出資拍攝一部以雲南為題材的電影材
料，這項計劃最後因故胎死腹中。曹斐最初構想拍攝一部
旅行紀錄片；2006年，她與三名年輕人一起在雲南各地旅
行，並以數碼攝影機記錄他們“在路上”的點點滴滴：每
天看到的自然景緻，他們之間以及與他人的對話、觀感和
情緒，對所居城市、工作的理想幻滅等等。這趟雲南之旅
最終成為對人生旅程的暗喻，是在快速變遷而混亂的中國
社會中，個人對生命價值的探索；同時也是對中國雄心勃
勃的發展計劃（例如怒江興建十多座水壩）對自然環境與
民眾生活所造成劇烈衝擊的一個尖銳評論。
