We are pleased to share Zheng Bo’s new work Phoenix at Lahore Biennale 03, Of Mountains and Seas, curated by John Tain.

Zheng Bo collaborates with seven Pakistani farmers living and working on a date palm farm outside Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to make a dance. The project, titled Phoenix, celebrates the beauty of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) and the skill of these stewards, highlighting intimate relations cultivated over millennia, vital to the economy and culture of the region.

Phoenix underscores the contribution of diasporic farmers to regional agriculture, while also drawing attention to the growing phenomenon of climate-induced migration, which in the coming decades is estimated to affect over a billion people, many of them in Asia.