How It Flows On is organized by Art Pioneer Studio and L+MALL at Lujiazui Center. In this exhibition, architect Liu Yichun, artist Qiu Anxiong, and composer Jin Wang collaborated and created a trans-space, trans-time, and trans-disciplinary large-scale immersive and interactive public installation.
The first stop of the exhibition’s sub-venues is the Riverside Passage in Yangpu riverside in Shanghai, which is the latest work by architect Liu Yichun. It is not only the window to the urban riverside but also is a container of the Yangpu riverside’s industrial history. In the exhibition How It Flows On, APSMUSEUM and the Riverside Passage are watching each other and tell their own stories.
On the other hand, the Seashore Library stands alone on the beach and faces the ocean. Designed by architect Dong Gong, the building looks like a piece of weathered rock, with a “return to earth” purity. Here, everyone can feel the light, the breeze, and the waves freely, and begin a distant, peaceful and spiritual life completely different from that of the city; here, we can slow down and focus on feeling the time and space we are in.
How It Flows On is an exhibition about time and space. Two thousand years ago, Confucius watched the flowing river and exclaimed “how it flows on”. It was a sentiment toward time, and how time flies like the flowing water. Through a live transmission installation, visitors can see the ocean view of Aranya in the art space at Shanghai's Lujiazui Center, as if they were in the library, feeling the passage of time and the ebb and flow of the sea. On the other hand, people can also view the scenery inside the APSMUSEUM at the Seashore Library. Through the interaction between the two places across a longer distance, we can listen to the story of How It Flows On and the sea.
How It Flows On is a collaboration between an architect, an artist, and a composer. How does such a large-scaled interdisciplinary art installation which combines architecture, video, and music interact with poetry?
This time, we will add poet Zhai Yongming's poem Plankton to the animated video of How It Flows On, and the words will float into the void when people tap on the transparent screen. The passing figures and objects in the animated video created by artist Qiu Anxiong are all the common people floating up and down in the river of time, similar to the world described in Plankton:
“......
Plankton travels in the ocean
The ocean as thick as syrup
The breast of the earth undulates nourished by water
And the hidden power of snowflakes
It can bring a city down
From the ocean to space
We forage for new food chains
Looking for new biomes soon
We'll be attached to the International Space Station
The next target unclear
......”
The text of the poem integrates and sparkles with images, music and architecture. On the other hand, the element of poetry adds another artistic form to How It Flows On, which endows the exhibition with new significance. On June 25th, let us enjoy the dance by the architecture, art, music and poetry of How It Flows On by the sea in Aranya.
The Seashore Library is located along the coast of Bohai in Beidaihe, the prosperous coastal community about 300 kilometers away from Beijing. Similar to the ocean which has an ever-changing character of altering from season to season, dazzling in purple blue during summer and covered with ice in winter, the Seashore Library blends in with the surrounding nature.
Many people find spiritual serenity at Seashore Library. It stands on an empty beach, in sharp contrast with our fast-paced city life. Here, everyone can slow down the usual pace, and unfold the feeling of distant and loneliness different from the city life.
The exterior of the library is constructed with concrete and steel, without complicated decorations and redundant structures. From outside, it looks like a weathered rock that is pure and solid. The main idea of the design is to explore the boundaries of space, physical activities, the coexistent relationship between the change of light and the circulation of air. What comes after the perception is the unique spiritual linkage between everyone and the sea. The library houses a reading area, a meditation space, activity room, a drinking bar, and a resting area. According to each space, the Seashore Library establishes distinctive relationship between space and the ocean, defining how light and wind enter each room.
The Seashore Library was designed by Dong Gong, who founded the Vector Architects in 2008. He was awarded as a Foreign Academician of the French Academy of Architecture in 2019. In the same year, he was appointed as a Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois in the United States and has been a design tutor at the School of Architecture, Tsinghua University since 2014.
Poet, essayist, founder of the cultural brand “White Night”, screenwriter of Dragonfly Eyes.
Zhai started publishing her poems in 1981 and began to focus on writing after quitting her job in 1986. In 1998, she founded the “White Night” in Chengdu, a well-known hub for artists to congregate during cultural festivals. Among her most notable works include poetry works are Woman, Above All the Roses, Calling It All, Finally Making My Turnover Difficult, Fourteen Plain Songs, Line Spacing, Roaming the Fuchun Mountains with Huang Gongwang, The Most Tactful Words, After the Popular, etc. Her poems have been translated into English, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, German, and other languages, and have been published in countries where people speak the above-mentioned languages.
In 2012, she won the "Ceppo Pistoia International Literary Award" in Italy and the “31st Northern California Book Awards in the same year.” She also received "The Outstanding Writer Award" at the 13th Chinese Literature and Media Awards in 2013. In 2019, Zhai won the "Golden Magnolia" Grand Prize at the 4th Shanghai International Poetry Festival.
Dr. Xiangning Li is dean and full professor in history, theory, and criticism at Tongji University College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He is the editor-in-chief of Architecture China. He is a member of CICA (Comité International des Critiques d'Architecture), and has published widely on contemporary Chinese architecture and urbanism in international architectural magazines including Architectural Review, A+U, Architectural Record, Arquitectura Viva, Space, Domus, and Volume. He has served as visiting scholar and professor at various institutions including MIT, MAK Center of Art and Architecture(Los Angeles), TU Darmstadt, Harvard GSD, etc. He has curated a number of exhibitions including the Pavilion of China at the 16th Venice International Architecture Biennale, “Toward a Critical Pragmatism: Practice of Contemporary Individual Architects in China” at Harvard GSD, 2017 Shanghai Urban Space Art Season, 2013 Shenzhen/Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale, Shanghai Westbund 2013 Biennale, etc. In addition to that, he has been working with international museums and institutes, including Milan Triennale and Goethe Institute, curating exhibitions on Chinese architecture. He has been a jury member to many international awards and competitions including Spanish International Architectural Award, Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction, and Mies van der Rohe Award the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture.
Stefano Boeri is a world-renowned architect, curator, critic, and educator. He received his Ph.D. from IUAV University in Venice in 1989. From 2011 to 2013, he served as the Deputy Mayor of Milan, in charge of culture and fashion, and was the chief planner of the Milan Expo 2015. He is currently the Chief Urban Cultural expert consultant of the Mayor of Florence. Mr. Boeri is also a professor of Urban Studies at the Politecnico di Milano. He has taught at Harvard University, Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Belahan Institute of Architecture in the Netherlands, and Moscow Strica.
Since 2007, Mr. Boeri has served as the curator of the Italian Architecture Festival. He is currently the curator of Calling in São Paulo and the invited curator of the main pavilion of the Venice Art Biennale in 2015. His well-known architecture projects include Milan's Vertical Forest, the overall plan for the 2015 Milan Expo, the planning and architectural renovation of the World G8 Summit venue, and the Marseille Mediterranean Cultural Center. His works and designs have been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Milan Triennale, Kassel Art Exhibition in Germany, Bordeaux Enlev Architecture Exhibition, Berlin Contemporary Art Center, Paris Museum of Contemporary Art, Generali Foundation in Vienna, TNProbe in Tokyo, and other internationally renowned art museums.
LIU Yichun, founder and principal architect of Atelier Deshaus.
He has lectured in many universities and institutions, such as Harvard University, University of Hong Kong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Architectural Institute of France, the RIBA, etc. His works have been widely presented in many international architectural and artistic exhibitions in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon, Dusseldorf, Rotterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Milan, Venice, Prague, Barcelona, Vienna, Geneva, Boston, Tokyo, Seoul, etc. His most representative work, the Long Museum West Bund, has been published on international journals and magazines across more than 26 countries and regions. The office is recognized as One of 10 Design Vanguards 2011 by Architectural Record. Liu has also been awarded the AR Award for Emerging Architecture by Architectural Review, the Golden Prize for Public Architecture at the Architecture Creation Awards of ASC, the Honor Award for Architecture Best in Show 2019 by AIA China, and the Gold Winner (Public Amenity: Social and Cultural Buildings) in ARCASIA Awards for Architecture 2020, and the Most Influential Chinese Designer by Forbes.
Qiu Anxiong was born in 1972 in Sichuan province. He graduated from Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 1994. In 2003 he graduated from the University Kassel's College of Art in Germany after six years of studying both contemporary international art and traditional Chinese culture. Now he is teaching at East China Normal University. His works employ different kinds of mediums including animation, painting, installation and video, etc. Representative works are animation films New Classic of Mountains and Seas, Temptation of the Land, Minguo Landscape, video installation Staring into Amnesia. He founded “Museum of Unkown” in 2007, which is an active power in the ecological construction of contemporary arts in recent years.
Qiu Anxiong’s recent work consists largely of paintings, animations, and video installations. In the 2006 piece The New Classic of Mountains and Seas, for example, Qiu employs multitudes of ink drawings and links them together in an animated form. The title itself refers to the ancient Chinese mythology Classic of the Mountains and Seas. Besides investigating the interaction between ancient and modern Chinese culture, this work and others like it have a dreamlike quality: the clearly delineated images framed by unbelievable narratives faithfully depict the absurdity of the world around us. This link to the everyday further enhances the political value of the work, which engages in a damning criticism of environmental degradation, social breakdown, and massive urbanization. Unlike younger artists, Qiu Anxiong does not indulge in the personal pleasures of the everyday, but rather takes the undifferentiated mass of history as his raw material.
Selected Public Collection Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Museum of Modern Art New York. Art Museum of Brooklyn, New York Spenser Museum, Kansas University Museum of University Oxford, Kunst Halle Zurich, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Art Museum Hongkong, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai Contemporary Art Museum.
Jin Wang, composer, born in 1978, Shanghai, China.
His chamber music has showcased at the Shanghai International Music Festival Shanghais Spring, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, the Korean International Music Festival, among others.
In addition to composing for concert works, Jin Wang has collaborated with a wide-range of different visual artists in various fields.
Collaborated in art films and multimedia works with the artist Yang Fudong such as " An Estranged Paradise ", "Seven Intellectuals In Bamboo Forest", "No Snow on the Broken Bridge", and "The Fifth Night", exhibited in: Documenta 11 Kassel, 52nd International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale, FACT Liverpool, Carnegie International, the Venice International Film Festival, Film Festival Hannover Germany, and other art exhibition and film festivals. Yang Fudong in 2010 directed creative music for famous Italian fashion brand PRADA advertising art video "First Spring", broadcast on PRADA's official website, reaching to a massive global audience.
The music for the artist Qiu Anxiongs animation video work, " New Book of Mountains and Seas Part 1 (2006) ", "New Book of Mountains and Seas Part 2 (2007) ", "Minguo Landscape (2007)," "Temptation of the land (2009), "Portrait "(2011) , has been exhibited at the International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale, the United States Spencer Museum of Art, Barbara Gross Gallery in Germany, Sao Paulo Biennale in Brazil, Cairo Biennale, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo Japan, Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Luxembourg Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Norway, etc. In 2011, Jin Wang collaborated with Qiu Anxiong a sound installation piece "Fundamental Tone," shown at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art "Concern Follow".
In 2007, Jin Wang was nominated in The Person of the Year Award by the Chinese Culture of Classical Music.
Wanli Mo，an emerging curate and architecture scholar.
Her research focuses on contemporary forms of life and its relationship with material and immaterial productions. Mo has published widely in Architectural Journal, Time+Architecture, Urban Environment Design, Retrospecta and etc. Since 2018, she has served as the acting editor of Architecture China. Mo is the curator of Home, Sweet Home(2017) exhibition at Shanghai Power Station of Arts. She has also served as an assistant curator of the Pavilion of China, Biennale Architettura, 2018 Shanghai Urban Space Art Season 2017.
She is also a doctoral student at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University. She received her Master of Architecture Degree from Yale University.
Dr. Xu Yibo, national first-class certified architect, Guest Lecturer of China Academy of Art
Dr. Xu Yibo is the Chinese partner/presiding architect and general manager of Stefano Boeri Architetti, Milan Chief Coordinator of China Triennial.
Decades of green design in Europe and China Practical experience, once worked for Cino Zucchi (CZA) in Milan and Office for Metropolitan Architecture(OMA). He once taught at the Master of Architecture School of the Politecnico di Milano, and published many articles on urban updates in domestic and foreign magazines. He presented at the CTBUH Shanghai International Symposium and CTBUH Chicago Conference Speeches etc. Participated in many architectural exhibitions, including the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, Beijing Design Week, Shanghai 2015 Urban Space Season, Shanghai 2116 Plan, Shanghai 2017 Urban Space Mars Planting plan, etc. Introducing the Milan Vertical Forest concept Entering the country, he was responsible for the construction of Nanjing Jiangbei Vertical Forest and Huanggang Vertical Forest City Complex.Shanghai Bailian Yanqingli fashion center renovation, Shenzhen Barrier-Free Innovation and entrepreneurship Center, etc.
Yixiong Bai, current undergraduate student at Rhode Island School of Design majoring in Interior Architecture, focusing on interior studies and adaptive reuse.