The nuts & bolts of memory

Living overseas has given him an international perspective from which to explain the Nanjing Bridge to the world, he says.

Last year he took an exhibition to the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, putting old items related to the bridge into transparent boxes. Last month he also showcased such historical thinking through another exhibition at the London Design Biennale.

The London exhibits will be moved to the bridge park on Saturday and will be displayed in a huge steel frame - once used to train workers renovating the bridge - to create a new experience for nostalgic Nanjingers.

This suggests that thinking outside the frame is needed not only in explaining the bridge to the world, but in re-explaining it to people in Nanjing, too.

Lu says the southern bridgehead tower will be used as a "vertical fine art gallery" in the future and the first floor will be turned into an exhibition hall on history of the bridge.

He recently launched a painting competition for children in Nanjing in which they can use their unstrained imagination to portray the bridge, and the winning works will be among the first to be displayed in the gallery.

"As the serious image of the bridge as a political icon fades, its historical, cultural and humanistic values linger on," Lu says.

"Why can't we make it soft and warm?"

People from those born in the 1930s to those born this century took part in all the art projects over the years, says Xu Huiquan, director of Jiangsu Fine Art Museum.

"That proves the bridge continues to be an important spiritual landmark and holder for our aesthetics, which have been tested by history."

Today, more than 60 bridges, including those being built, span the Yangtze River. In Nanjing alone there are five. As with high-speed rail, China is leading the world in building large bridges, and Xu reckons that a 50-year old bridge in Nanjing can take some of the credit for that.

"It was from when the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge was built that we began to have all these achievements."