New exhibition opening! Entering the "Shadow Path" Space of Southern Architecture | Architecture | New Exhibition

Entering the third floor of the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, the exhibition space is like an open-air market. Six white umbrellas stand in the center of the exhibition hall, surrounded by models of ten architectural projects from southern China, including Guangdong and Fujian, showcasing ten real-life architectural practices. Under the white umbrella, several old bamboo chairs remind people of the cool scenes in their hometown.

Wooden Bridge in Gulao Water Township, photographed by Jin Weiqi

From July 15th to October 8th, the second season of the "New Culture Producer" project, "Active Architecture," was exhibited at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art. The selected plan for this season was "The Way of Shadow," planned by architect Chen Donghua. This plan focuses on a semi natural, semi artificial, and semi indoor collective space state in southern China - "shadow.".

S Cloud Corridor in Guanhu Central Park, photographed by Wu Siming

"In daily life in the south, we often see various independent 'shadow' places, such as the gray spaces of the village's' banyan tree head ', Lingnan courtyard, arcade space, street side stalls, and market ceilings, permeating every pore of daily life." Chen Donghua, a native of Foshan, introduced that "The Way of Shadows" cleverly introduces ten surface shadows scattered in the three different daily environmental states of "city town township" in the south at the exhibition site, with slightly swaying umbrella structures scattered between them, like a market, cleverly introducing daily scenes under the shadow of the south. He revealed that in order to highlight the theme of "active architecture", the umbrella shaped structure is supported by elastic thin circular tubes, which are suspended by cables to form a circular ring and umbrella roof. The bottom of the pillar can rotate flexibly, but the circular ring and cable always maintain a dynamic horizontal balance. "For the South, umbrellas themselves are a very daily symbol, and umbrellas are needed on rainy or sun exposed days."

Lianzhou Photography Museum, photographed by Zhang Chao

Entering the exhibition hall is like visiting ten construction sites in person. Among them, the Incremental Art Museum, located in the central area of Futian, Shenzhen, is a street art exhibition pavilion with exhibition space open to the streets. The internal exhibition is regularly updated, just like an "urban camping site" in a bustling city. The Lianzhou Photography Museum is centered around the traditional "Lianzhou Mansion", with the first floor resembling a community "living room" under the same roof, transforming the interior of the museum into the exterior of the city. The Huangyong Market, located in Huangyong Village, the hinterland of the Pearl River Delta, seamlessly integrates residential buildings, vegetable markets, basketball courts, kindergartens, fruit stalls, and meticulously designed tall canopy buildings, becoming a part of the daily lives of residents. In order to resist the sun and rain in the Lingnan climate, the Yaoke Symbiosis Square is surrounded by a garden style wind and rain corridor to form a large courtyard, connecting bookstores, exhibition halls, shops, festival stages and other functional places with rich spatial fun. As for the composite public space "Bridge Library" set up on the bridge, it not only provides classrooms and library space for children, but also can be flexibly transformed into a public stage in spare time to meet the diverse needs of villagers.

Qiaoshang Bookstore, provided by Li Xiaodong Studio

At the same time, young director and image artist Shen Ruilan and her team also filmed the documentary "The Way of Shadow" of the same name, which will be presented simultaneously in the image space outside the exhibition hall.

Yaoke Symbiosis Square, provided by a limited design studio

The "New Culture Producer" project was launched in September 2021 by the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art in collaboration with the Chanel Cultural Foundation. Every year, it publicly solicits and implements excellent group exhibition plans from observers, researchers, experimenters, and practitioners in the relevant creative field, showcasing their most convincing innovative forces in their field of vision, in order to inspire new concepts and innovative practices in contemporary Chinese handicrafts and architecture. The first season focuses on the revival of "craftsmanship", which will be held in parallel with two exhibitions from November 5, 2022 to February 5, 2023 at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, sparking discussions among various sectors about the possibility of "craftsmanship" revival. "This year, we are turning our attention to architecture and people, which are not only the long-term focus and research of the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, but also because this topic is the foundation of urban life," said Gong Yan, the director of the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art.