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Futuristic eco-arts festival opens in Pudong

Updated: 2016-09-08

( chinadaily.com.cn )

The Shanghai Project's Envision 2116, a long-term multidimensional art festival engaging issues of sustainability, opened in Pudong New Area, Shanghai on Sept 4.

Futuristic eco-arts festival opens in Pudong

Envision Pavilion is a creative and striking building designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. [Photo/Pudong Times]

The Shanghai art festival scene is already extremely crowded but Envision 2116 is no ordinary affair and differs in terms of duration, function, and content. The festival is divided into phases, the first of which runs from Sept 4 through April 2017.

In conjunction with a range of Shanghai-based art establishments and universities, Envision 2116 strives to act as an audience-orientated festival creating dialogue between professionals and the citizens of Shanghai.

The festival is co-directed by Yongwoo Lee (Shanghai Himalayas Museum) and esteemed curator Hans Ulrich Obrist (Serpentine Galleries, London). Both directors are keen to increase discussion about mankind's potential role in the 22nd century.

"The projects displayed are only a small part of the event," said Yongwoo Lee. Equally important to the exhibited displays are the conversations that the festival generates between members of the general public.

Futuristic eco-arts festival opens in Pudong

Seed Planet, a children's program created by Chinese artist Liu Yi at the Century Park for the Shanghai Project [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The centerpiece of the festival is the Envision Pavilion designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. It is a futuristic structure that blends both natural and manmade building materials and treads a line between translucent and opaque. The staggered, multi-pyramid structure is interspersed with trees and gives the impression of being a forest floating above a city.

Envision Pavilion hosts an array of instillations that question the relationship of humans and the earth, culture and society. Key among these is the creation of Seed Planet by Chinese artist Liu Yi, a work that centers on the idea that the future belongs to children.

The intersection of disciplines such as art, architecture, technology, and ecology is fundamental to the in-depth approach taken by the Shanghai Project. The festival raises the grim reality that on account of global warming the Shanghai of 2116 will be totally different from the city we see today.

The Shanghai Project is being held in cooperation with many art institutions including the Power Station of Art and the West Bund Art & Design Fair.

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