MADE IN CHINA is a three-channel video installation filmed in Manzhouli, a Chinese border town located along the 4,200-kilometer frontier with Russia—one of the longest continuous land borders in the world. As a major crossing point on the “New Silk Road,” Manzhouli plays a key role in rail-based trade between the two countries. Situated within the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the city is shaped not only by global commerce, but also by histories of assimilation and internal control.

To speak of a border with Russia today is to speak from within an active zone of global tension. Russia’s ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine reverberates far beyond its immediate geography—reshaping alliances, deepening fractures, and exposing the fragile scaffolding of international order. In Manzhouli, these currents are not abstract; they are inscribed in infrastructure, atmosphere, and movement.

My grandfather traveled here more than 33 times in the 1990s as a shuttle trader, often filming his journeys. Thirty years later, I return to a radically transformed city—now a surreal landscape of oversized Matryoshka dolls, fiberglass mammoths, and replicas of Russian landmarks.

I move through hotel lobbies, markets, and empty squares, tracing the remnants of past exchanges. Using found footage, on-site recordings, and layered narration, the work reflects on circulation, transformation, and the hybrid aesthetics of a border shaped as much by trade and tourism as by contested histories and geopolitical anxiety.