My long-awaited first solo exhibition in Australia
'DISAGREE WHERE WE MUST'
Opening : Wednesday  6 August, 6–8pm
Exhibition Dates: 6 August – 28 August
Goldstone gallery: 41 Derby St, Collingwood, VIC , Australia

Disagree Where We Must marks the long-overdue first major solo exhibition of Badiucao in Australia, the country he has called home since 2009. While his work has been celebrated in prestigious national museums across Europe and beyond, he has faced extraordinary resistance in mounting exhibitions on Australian soil. This delay is not due to lack of merit, but the chilling effects of Beijing’s far-reaching campaign of censorship, intimidation, and transnational repression, a campaign that has cast its shadow even over Australian cultural institutions.

‘TRUE FACE OF LABUBU’
2025
30 x 21cm
Water color on paper

This work juxtaposes two starkly different yet disturbingly connected images: a leaked photograph from a Uyghur concentration camp in Xinjiang and the globally popular toy LaBubu, produced by Chinese company PopMart. In doing so, the piece confronts the uneasy intersection of consumer culture, complicity, and collective amnesia.

At the height of international concern over the use of forced Uyghur labor in Xinjiang’s cotton industry, PopMart issued a statement on Chinese social media, shamelessly supporting Xinjiang cotton and sidestepping any acknowledgment of the human rights abuses involved. Despite this, the company’s products—especially Labubu—have only grown in popularity, with fans around the world queuing for hours to collect its latest releases.

By placing a symbol of state violence alongside an icon of trend-driven consumerism, the artwork lays bare the absurdity of cultural memory in the age of distraction. It asks: What are we willing to overlook for the sake of aesthetic pleasure? And what does it mean when playthings become more visible than the people who suffer behind them?

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