Chen Qiulin's installations, photographs and video works comment on the scale and pace of change in contemporary China. Amid imagery of daily life in rural communities and burgeoning cities, she creates magical scenarios that reflect the tensions between tradition and modernity, stability and flux, construction and destruction. A number of Chen's works have been inspired by the effects of the Three Gorges Dam hydroelectric project, which has displaced over a million people and submerged hundreds of towns, including her own hometown of Wuxian.

In Garden, Chen combines a theatrical aesthetic with a reflective documentation of flower sellers, who appear out of place in the stark urban environment. They make their way through the grey streets of Chengdu bearing huge bunches of bright pink peonies — flowers that traditionally represent wealth, but these are artificial. Within the grand narrative of China's social and economic transformation, Chen's work considers concepts of place, memory and individual experience.