Shine SIVA at Millbank

At the beginning of October 2013 some of our partners in the City Squares Project, a group of teachers and their students, arrived in London from the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts to install a public artwork on the Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground on the Chelsea College of Arts campus.

Bamboo poles, rope and rocks from the Thames riverbank were used to create a number of structures in the centre of this city square that looks on to the Tate Britain art museum.

Bamboo poles are traditionally used in Shanghai to hang washing out to dry in the sun. This is where the title of the work "Shine" comes from. It is about sunshine and its drying and refreshing power.

Hanging from the bamboo structures are textiles reminiscent of the bedding that would traditionally in Shanghai be be hung out of doors and aired when the sun comes out. The students from SIVA used these textile sheets to visually communicate how in their city there is a fascinating history of links between British business and the way Shanghai became in the 20th century a rival in Modernity to New York, Paris, Berlin and, of course London. So this project celebrates the links between China and the United Kingdom, and Shanghai's connections to British business and the capital city of the UK. Shanghai and London have been sister cities since 1996.