Basalt Studio features in Cao Fei’s “My City is Yours” exhibition

Basalt Studio is honoured to have our work featured in Cao Fei: My City Is Yours, a major solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. This landmark presentation by internationally acclaimed Beijing-based artist Cao Fei transforms the Naala Badu gallery into a sprawling metropolis of memory, technology, and imagination.

Spanning over two decades of Cao’s practice, the exhibition fuses film, installation, architecture, performance, and digital environments to explore how cities evolve and how identity is reshaped in a world of rapid urban and technological change. Neon lights, reconstructed cinema foyers, futuristic plazas, and nostalgic interiors bring audiences into a layered cityscape that feels both familiar and dreamlike.

Among the many immersive works is a celebration of Sydney’s own Chinatown, where Basalt Studio’s Burwood Chinatown is featured as part of the dialogue between real urban spaces and Cao’s imagined worlds. Our design is known for its vibrancy and community-driven storytelling, sits alongside other architectural and cultural references, positioning Sydney within a global conversation about transformation, migration, and belonging.

Walking into the exhibition, visitors enter cinematic dreamscapes, sandy auditorium installations, and bustling environments alive with sound, movement, and colour. Within this urban sprawl, audiences also find a recreated Cantonese restaurant that nods to Sydney’s beloved Marigold, as well as vibrant works like Hip Hop: Sydney, a film featuring over 60 Chinese-Australians dancing through Chinatown streets.

The inclusion of Burwood Chinatown in this context resonates deeply with us. For Basalt Studio, this project was never just about designing a precinct — it was about shaping a cultural landmark that celebrates Asian identity in contemporary Australia. To see it reframed through Cao Fei’s visionary lens reinforces how design, art, and community are inseparably linked.

The exhibition design is structured like a city. Zones shift between theatre, factory, market, restaurant, and retreat — echoing the way urban environments are never singular, but overlapping worlds of culture, commerce, and connection.

For Basalt Studio, being part of My City is Yours is a recognition of the role design plays in shaping cultural memory and identity. We are proud to see Burwood Chinatown included in an exhibition that not only charts Cao Fei’s visionary career but also positions Sydney within a dynamic global narrative.