As statesmen scheme and grease their palms, beneath the statue witches dance, a cleaner prays, and spirits weep. Guan Yin’s gaze falls over the broken shards of human life from empires old and new.
Joel Tan’s shape-shifting play unfolds the statue’s journey from China to Britain and back again, stirring up centuries of ghosts.
Directed by experimental theatre-makers emma + pj (Ghosts of the Near Future, Barbican), Scenes from a Repatriation questions who can claim cultural artefacts – and why.
