Lujiazui Old Community Transforms into an "Open Air Art Museum"

"It's really beautiful. Do you still need to go to the art museum to see an exhibition? Our community is like an 'open-air art museum'!" In mid September, amidst the admiration of the residents, with the poster and preface of the 'Liu Yi Community Exhibition: From the Inner Wall of the Art Museum to the Outer Wall of Dongyuan 2' exhibition, the first phase of the 'open-air art museum' was officially completed after it was put on the wall in Dongyuan 3 Village, which belongs to the residential area of Lujiazui Dongyuan 2.

The "Open Air Art Museum" in Dongyuan Second Residential Area is another "Art Community" project launched by the famous curator and initiator of the "Community Hub Station", led by Wang Nanming, following projects such as the "Star Dream Parking Shed" in Dongchang New Village, the "Loudao Art Museum" in Dongchang Building, and the "Art Elevator" in Shixin Community on the streets of Lujiazui. When it comes to the whole year from planning to implementation of the project, Wang Nanming has a deep understanding: "The 'art community' is a practical field for grassroots social consultation."

"Art Community" does not disturb the people

As an old residential area under the cover of the Lujiazui skyscraper, about two years ago, Dongyuan San Village completed a renovation project, greatly improving the overall appearance of the community. "The walls of the residential buildings in the community have become clean, but there are still large gaps left. Can we further beautify them?" Shen Qing, Secretary of the Party General Branch of Dongyuan Second Residential Area, revealed that they had initially organized discussions, and some residents recommended wall painting design companies to come up with a plan. However, they all gave up because the results did not meet expectations. Under the guidance of the Lujiazui Community Committee, last summer, Shen Qing invited Wang Nanming to the community for inspection: "I have visited the 'Star Dream Parking Shed' and 'Loudao Art Museum' before, which is truly refreshing!"

"It's really rare for an old community to have so many clean and complete walls," said Wang Nanming. After consultation and communication between both parties, it was decided to use the walls as the practical venue for this "art community" project. He transplanted the works from the exhibition "Liu Yi: From Outside, Walking Inside, and Looking Outside" held by Biyun Art Museum in 2022 from the museum walls to three different walls in different locations in the community. These works were originally created by artist Liu Yi's mobile phone paintings, which were digitally printed and enlarged. However, when transferred from indoors to outdoors, the visual effects are completely different. To ensure that the work remains as new as ever, the team has specially used rainproof and sunscreen materials for spray painting.

However, there are also various limitations in old communities, and "art communities" must be tailored to local conditions. In recent years, there have been more and more private cars in Dongyuan San Village, and parking spaces have occupied many community corridors. To this end, the neighborhood committee, property management company, and others came forward to communicate and explain, obtained the understanding of the car owners, and temporarily designated some parking spaces as creative areas. Wang Nanming's team spent the shortest possible time to complete the work, and the longest time would not exceed one day. "The 'art community' is not meant to disturb the people, but to serve the residents. In Wang Nanming's view, when a car owner moves their private car out of the parking space, a part of the artwork will be exposed, making people feel happy both physically and mentally at a glance, and producing an aesthetic effect unconsciously.".

Due to the scattered exhibition works on different walls of the community, in order to enhance the overall sense of the "open-air art museum", Wang Nanming's team has set up exhibition posters and preface columns in prominent positions. However, the building walls that Wang Nanming admired belonged to the power grid company. So, Shen Qing, the secretary of the Party branch in the residential area, took the initiative to communicate and quickly gained recognition from the power grid company. "We use a detachable facade frame to create poster columns for the convenience of the power grid company's necessary safety inspections. At the same time, we use grid cloth material to print and install posters, trying to show the background color of the distribution box behind as much as possible." Wang Nanming smiled and said, "With unified planning, the community will be more like an art museum."

Drive more residents to beautify their lives

The so-called "art community" requires both foreign artists to send art and local residents to actively create art. During the implementation of the "Open Air Art Museum" project, the "Community Hub Station" team simultaneously brought public education from the art museum into the community. Artist Liu Yi was invited to the residential area of Dongyuan No.2 and held a mobile phone drawing parent-child workshop.

Under the guidance of Liu Yi, adults and children learned the concept and methods of mobile phone painting. Nowadays, children are all part of the "screen generation" and are not unfamiliar with electronic products such as smartphones and tablets. Liu Yi encourages activity participants to observe the people and things around them and express them through painting. The children also actively interacted with Liu Yi and created paintings with childlike innocence. Later, the "Community Hub Station" team chose two works by Zhu Yiran, which were painted with acrylic and installed on the exterior wall of the fitness park in the community, echoing Liu Yi's works. In addition, the team also selected a wall near the entrance and exit of the community and organized master's and doctoral students from Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts to lead more than 20 children to copy Liu Yi's works and create wall paintings. The images, texts, and other artistic literature materials generated from the above artistic practices are displayed in the new art space of the residential activity room in Dongyuan San Village - this is also a small exhibition hall vacated through negotiation.

After the completion of the first phase of the "Open Air Art Museum", looking back on the past year, Shen Qing saw the social governance results achieved by the construction of the "Art Community" and sighed that choosing the "Community Hub Station" team was "the right choice": "Compared to other contents, the content of the" Open Air Art Museum "is richer, more down-to-earth, more people participate, the effect of art popularization is better, and it can also drive more residents to beautify their lives!"

"We do not change the overall appearance of the community through a one-time project. Every step of the 'Open Air Art Museum' is a gradual process of building trust with residents and understanding each other's demands. Now, Wang Nanming has planned the second phase of the 'Open Air Art Museum' work.". In his vision, the community will have more walls for residents to create: "Through dialogue between artists and residents, more parent-child art public education works will grow in the second phase of the 'Open Air Art Museum'."

Text/Part Photography: Cao Zhiguang

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