LONDON.- In Spring 2027, the Hayward Gallery will present the largest UK solo exhibition to date by the internationally-celebrated Chinese multimedia artist Cao Fei (b. 1978). Charting the development of a figure at the forefront of technological revolution in contemporary art, the survey will mark the UK debut of The Birth (2026) alongside her most seminal works, including Whose Utopia (2006), RMB City (2007–2011) and Asia One (2018).
Born in Guangzhou, Cao Fei is one of the most influential contemporary artists to emerge from China. Using film, photography and digital media, she draws on technology, video games, science fiction, pop culture, cinema and historical references to reflect our rapidly changing society. Distinctively experiential, her exhibitions transform spaces into immersive, often-surreal environments - from recreated industrial warehouses to video arcades and vintage cinema foyers - that invite us to walk the line between the real and the virtual.
Cao Fei, artist, says: "My work has always responded to the times we live in: from China becoming the world's factory, to urbanisation, the virtual world and artificial intelligence. These changes have profoundly reshaped how we live and perceive. Through my practice, I try to capture the confusion, imagination, and hope within them. We share the same era of accelerating change, and the same questions about identity, memory, and the future. I hope my Hayward Gallery exhibition offers an entry point for audiences from all backgrounds."
Unfolding across five thematic chapters, the exhibition traces Cao’s practice from the early 2000s to the present. It will feature the UK debut of The Birth (2026), a three-channel video installation that takes the form of a woven, temple-like shrine crafted from fertilizer sacks, harvest props, and decorative paper banners. The piece observes the ways in which drones are used for farming across China and Southeast Asia, exploring how new technologies intersect with ancient rituals, such as burning incense and offering gifts in the hope of abundant harvests, to probe how humans can co-exist with machines.
Meanwhile, Whose Utopia (2006) transforms part of the gallery into a factory dormitory, complete with cardboard boxes and a cluttered bunk bed, to further explore modern labour. Within this setting, a video juxtaposes documentary footage of factory workers performing routine tasks in a lightbulb factory with dream sequences that reveal their hidden desires.
The exhibition will also include her early landmark projects Cosplayers (2004) and RMB City (2007–2011), which rooted Cao’s interest in exploring the ‘avatar’ both offline and digitally. Recognised as one of the most significant artworks of the 21st century, RMB City shows her longstanding practice of worldbuilding as she creates a virtual metropolis using the online platform Second Life. The work sees Cao adopt the avatar China Tracy and encourages players from around the world to construct the city, making it a groundbreaking project in digital art due to its exploration of online identity.
Highlighting her more recent practice, Meta-mentary (2022) asks passers-by to explain where the Metaverse is and what it means to them, while Super Delivery (2024) allows visitors to participate in a playable artwork which fuses physical reality with a Super Mario-style digital experience. Similarly blending retro and futuristic elements, Hongxia (2019–2024) was created during a period when Cao repurposed an abandoned 1950s theatre in Beijing as her studio, using virtual reality, film and multimedia installations to engulf visitors in the history of the space to explore memory, gentrification and technological progress.
By documenting these virtual environments, shifting urban landscapes and the personal stories lived out within them, Cao Fei’s fantastical worlds at the Hayward Gallery will challenge us to rethink our past, present, and future.
Yung Ma, Senior Curator, says: “Cao Fei’s art is a rich and expansive universe. It straddles immediate realities and speculative futures, unreservedly crossing boundaries between the real, the fantastical and the virtual. It probes at the way we see the world and pushes how art and tech can transform each other. It excites, it thrills, it disrupts and it questions. But most importantly, at the core of it is Cao Fei’s tireless pursuit to understand the human experience in a world where changes are increasingly accelerated and inevitable.”
Mark Ball, Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre, says: “The Southbank Centre has always operated at the vanguard of art and tech, from the first digital computer game shown at the 1951 Festival of Britain to our new annual festival Creative Intelligence. I am thrilled to see Cao Fei continue this legacy of restless innovation, offering a timely exploration of the complex, shifting relationship between humanity and technology in the digital age.”
A fully illustrated catalogue featuring critical essays and an in-depth conversation with the artist will accompany the exhibition.
The exhibition is the second iteration of Cao Fei’s first major European survey. The first iteration Testimonies to the Near Future was developed by and presented at Kunstmuseum Basel in June 2026.
Cao Fei (b. 1978 in Guangzhou) currently lives and works in Beijing. She has exhibited extensively worldwide, including at some of the most prestigious museums such as MoMA and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Tate Modern in London, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Her recent major solo exhibitions have been held at institutions such as Kunstmuseum Basel and Fondazione Prada in Milan (both 2026); Museum of Art Pudong in Shanghai, Lenbachhaus in Munich and Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney (all 2024); MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome and the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing (both 2021); and Serpentine in London (2020). She has also participated in numerous biennials and triennials, including Venice, Sharjah, Sydney, Istanbul, Shanghai and Yokohama. Cao is a medallist of the inaugural Art Basel Awards in 2025 and a recipient of Deutsche Brse Photography Foundation Prize in 2021. She was also named one of the 100 most influential people of 2026 by Time Magazine this year.
