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Platform for Urban Investigation

Contribution - Shanglie Zhou and Jan Van Woensel

Their contribution to the Platform for Urban Investigation-project elaborates from their specific local orientation and aims to changing the environment through a direct intervention in the public space. Ten postcards representing monuments, historical buildings and famous touristy places in Antwerp will be appropriated by the artist and reprinted on poster size to be displayed at ten different locations in Shanghai. The postcards are addressed to specific persons that are significant for the cities' cultural scene; Zhou Benyi (Professor at the Shanghai Theater Academy), Chunming Gao (Director of Shanghai Arts Research Institute), Sheng Han (Vice-president of the Shanghai Theater Academy), Jianguo Zheng (Director of Shanghai Oriental Publicity and Education Service Center) a.o. As the handwritten messages on the back side of the postcards will be presented alongside the colorful images of this Northern Belgian city, they become public notes. Hereby the artist introduces a personal reflection on the project by integrating her situation of being disconnected from her original habitat to generate moments of concentration in the changing cityscape. These messages will include impressions from both cities; their cultural scene and historical background; but will as well reflect upon the rapidly changing and expanding city and the social conditions this irreversible evolution evokes. This contribution to the Platform for Urban Investigation aims to reach the people of Shanghai and establishes a public debate through a socially engaged intervention in the public space. The concept for this project was designed by Shanglie Zhou and Jan Van Woensel.