One morning last week I got the call from Prof Pan Yiqun to meet him in Songzhuang . That day he was making preparations for casting one of his sculptures bound for a project in Korea. He picked me up from the subway station and is often the case here,  we went  straight to a restaurant to meet some other people for lunch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I met a filming crew  who were also  documenting the afternoon.  Leo Shi Young is producing a documentary about the surviving so named comfort women in China and Korea. He told me there were about 24 women still living in China today and he has interviewed under half of them.( Leo also works in the commercial movie industry in the US and had been working on the soon to be released Hollywood movie “The Moon and the Sun”. )

After taking a look at the wax mould which needed to stay cooled in a water bath – Beijing is hot in July. The wax was examined. In the photo above : to the left is Leo Shi Young and to the right side is Pan Yiqun . Mr Liang the factory manager took us through the foundry.

 

The exciting part of course was the pouring of copper into the various casts . A huge vat was tilted to fill a bucket  which was carried to the various parts for pouring.

The heat was intense and it was thrilling to see the various cast pots poured to full red hot circles at the surface.

Pan Yiqun will be showing similar work at the exhibition “Intimate Transgressions” showing at Inter Art Gallery in 798, Beijing on October 25 .