M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong. By donation, © Zhao Bandi. Photo: Lok Cheng. Image courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
NARRATOR:
Zhao Bandi’s poster series, Zhao Bandi and the Panda, was created in 1999. Four of these posters are displayed at the 2025 exhibition M+ Sigg Collection: Inner Worlds. These laminated colour inkjet prints are almost square-shaped, measuring between 116 and 127 centimetres in height and approximately 120 centimetres in width.
All posters feature Zhao and a toy panda accompanied by bilingual speech bubbles in Simplified Chinese and English. Using the visual language of public service announcements, he transforms the panda, China’s adorable national treasure and top diplomat, into a vessel for his narrative. Through dialogues with the panda, he explores social topics pertinent to China at the time they were made, such as drugs, counterfeits, unemployment, and AIDS.
The poster titled Zhao Bandi and the Panda—I am laid off. Here’s a present for you, it will make you look farther. shows the artist and the panda chatting on a bridge in the middle of the day. Zhao, sporting a light-yellow jacket with a blue hood over his head, stands on the right. With his back to us, he leans against the railing, as if watching the busy traffic below. A speech bubble with sharp spikes in the top right corner reads, ‘I am laid off,’ specifying Zhao’s agitated voice. On the left-hand side, the panda is seated on the railing, facing Zhao. It holds the straps of a pair of binoculars, placed between them. A curved speech bubble in the lower left corner reads, ‘Here’s a present for you, it will make you look farther,’ with its shape suggesting the panda’s gentle tone. The poster’s precise composition vividly depicts both figures in the foreground, the distant cityscape in a greyish haze against a milky sky, and a blurred thoroughfare in between. This visual arrangement portrays the disorientation of being laid off and the desire to see the future clearly through binoculars.