In a project that started since year 2000, Chinese artist Han Bing has documented a series of photographs that see him walking a cabbage on a leash in public.
This unusual act is actually the artist’s way of provoking debate on how society value things as the cabbage is a Chinese symbol of sustenance.
The artist explains his ‘performance’ on his website by stating that “a full stock of cabbage for the winter was once a symbol of material well-being in China, but nowadays the rich have cast it aside in favor of fancy restaurants where waste signifies status. Yet, for the poor and struggling, the realities of cabbage as a subsistence bottom line have not changed. What's changed is the value structure that dictates what—and who—is valuable or worthless in Chinese society”.
He has ‘walked the cabbage’ at well-known places such as the Great Wall, Miami Beach, Harajuku and Tiananmen.
Check out some of the photos from the series below.
[via First We Feast, images from Han Bing]