128 - 01|12|09
WILLS OF HARMONEY
Curated by Claire Louise Staunton
Permanent Migrants
Temporary Project Space
Inheritance – Shenzhen
06.12.09 – 15.02.2010
inheritanceprojects.org
Bai Xiaoci, Chu Yun, Guy Delisle, Liu Chuang, Christian Jankowski, Jiang Zhi, Daniel Knorr, Map Office [Gutierrez+Portefaix], Yang Yong.
Permanent Migrants is the first exhibition to be held at Inheritance – Shenzhen ?????, a project space in urban Shenzhen.
Retrospective in nature, the exhibition presents artworks specific by a number prominent artists in China and around the world that are specific to the city of Shenzhen. It is just one attempt at proposing a contemporary art history of the very young city. The artists - many current or former residents - have spent considerable time engaging with the anomalous specificities of Shenzhen.
-
Proposed as a temporary and potentially mobile project space, the mission of INH-SZ ????? is to demand urgent questions about the art history and visual culture of the new and migrant city. Accessing such issues as history making, voluntary displacement and exile, economic migrancy, identity and gender politics through artistic and curatorial practices - Inheritance Projects hopes that this is only one element of a permanent engagement with the impermanent city.
INH-SZ ????? has an open door policy with an unobtrusive but active public programmes, inviting the local population to see in a local context, the artistic practices of artists who live and work in the city. There will be workshops with Shenzhen schools and universities, research and development of local artists and unstructured happenings involving the nearby residents and merchants. It is fundamental to INH-HZ ????? that the habitants of Bai Shi Zhou and wider Shenzhen have the opportunity to experience art without feeling patronized or excluded in order to recognize the artistic heritage of the young city.
The INH-SZ ????? project space has been invited to open alongside the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture one the 6th of December with the inaugural exhibition Permanent Migrants. INH-SZ ????? will be open until at least April 2010 and will include new commissions from 2 Chinese and 1 visiting artist.
INH-SZ ????? holds an expanding contextual archive, that is publicly accessible and both Chinese and English. The library acts as a theoretical context for the project for those who wish to read more about exhibitions in Shenzhen, the Pearl River Delta, urbanism, contemporary Chinese art and alternative art spaces.