Created in the highly accessible medium of colour gel pen on paper, the group drawings of Guangzhou-based art collective BOLOHO include elaborate pastiches of history and culture, while their animations and sitcoms abound in rapid-fire comedy exploring family and workplace dynamics.

Lunar Factory 2024 is based on BOLOHO’s research into the Overseas Chinese Farms of southern China, principally rubber plantations that channelled the expertise of Chinese diasporas returning from South-East Asia during the 1950s. During the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, these farms were transformed into commercial and industrial sites. In some cases they were redeveloped as theme parks, such as a ‘dinosaur park’ BOLOHO encountered, or as ‘Chinese South-East Asian Communities’ offering exotic South-East Asian food and performances for domestic tourists. BOLOHO’s research also suggests that Shenzhen’s famed Window of the World theme park, with its replicas of iconic global monuments, was built on the site of an Overseas Chinese Farm.

These narratives are documented among 30 vignettes that make up an intricate, four-panel collective drawing and a comedic video installation. They track local legends, as well as the lives of workers who settled and started families in China or who continued their migrations. For BOLOHO, Lunar Factory attempts to fill gaps in intergenerational knowledge from a period of rapid change.