An Invitation to create work for People's Square Shanghai

City Square

Preface by Philip Courtenay

I never ever thought of visiting China, then a friend, who was also a colleague and an ex-student of Chelsea, and who was born in Shanghai, introduced me to her brother, also an artist, whilst he was visiting relatives here in London. It didn't take long for our conversations to turn toward the subject of art education. Everything I knew then about China was gained from a world of representations, and so when it was suggested that I should visit Shanghai and see for myself how art was studied there, I remembered a phrase from a lecture by Michel Foucault where he said "travel, not books!". Why this phrase stays with me is because all my artistic work of the last 20 years or so has been about efforts to withdraw some of the projections and assumptions we hold concerning the wider world, so that it might be possible to see what the world is actually like! Sounds easy, but it's not! Travel not books is good advice, and definitely helps, but it is working with people in "another place" that has had the most profound impact upon an understanding of what it is we actually do know and what we do not know about another place. This other place is also a zone where many misunderstandings occur. These misunderstandings are inevitable as we meet and exchange ideas, translate, explore (actually, virtually and metaphorically), but sometimes it is these very misunderstandings that can throw up new ideas for creative work. So this is a learning environment where exploration and research is able to spark creative innovation, and a place to make global connections that might have a significant influence on your future careers in art and design. It certainly has for me!

So, since 2002 I have made many visits to Shanghai, and have worked with artists, designers, architects, curators and fellow academics. This invitation arises out of these connections and a particular concern with art and design and what we in the UK might call 'public realm', but in Shanghai might be called 'public art', or 'public culture'. The design of this exchange project is all about creating a space for dialogue to enrich research, and to come up with ideas and proposals, and to select from these ideas and proposals projects to realize and install in two city squares, one here at Millbank, and the other in People's Square (or Park) in Shanghai.


The City Square Project

The City Squares Project is about artistic/design thinking and making and acting to transform or enhance a sense of place within two city squares located at the heart of two world class cities, Shanghai and London. Chelsea students are invited to work on this project with students from SIVA (Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts).

The Project Timeline Page in the tab above sets out the methods and purposes of the project in a sequence of planned stages where Research and the presentation and exchange of research is a major part of the learning experience the project is designed to contain.

The Research Page in the tab above is empty at the moment, but is a place designed to archive research activity and the research outcomes which will take the form of proposals.

The Shanghai - MOCA People's Square Page in the tab above provides a starting point of historical and contemporary context for People's Square to help instigate a "feel" for the place, and also to show that this site for your work is already a place with a global status and right at the heart of a global mega-city. SIVA students will act as researchers for you in exploring this space and its context, in ways that enhance your understanding of the space, and to a degree that allows you to make proposals that really are in tune with the time as well as the place. In this process you will be organizing "research missions" for your SIVA partners.

The London - Parade Ground Millbank Page in the tab above provides a starting point for research that you will be conducting and then exchanging with your SIVA partners in Shanghai in order to help them contextualize their artistic and design thinking about possible "interventions" for our Parade Ground space.

The Public Art at SIVA Page in the tab above is to provide you with some sense of what your partners at SIVA are doing as part of their course. Philip Courtenay was invited to contribute to a project instigated by SIVA in a part of Shanghai known as PuDong.  The chosen site for the project was an old Riverside Community called Sanlin. This riverside location formed the focus for a number of public art strategies, in the re-generation of a place that has survived recent urban developments. This project is understood to have been a "ground breaking" project by the Chinese government.