This Is Shanghai, Open Eye Gallery

This is Shanghai

This is Shanghai, explores and celebrates the relationship between Liverpool and its twin city in China, to reflect urban and cultural evolution and transformation through ten leading and emerging contemporary artists from China. Presented by Culture Liverpool in partnership with Open Eye Gallery, the works are staged at locations across Liverpool’s iconic Waterfront. The Cunard Building plays host to the This is Shanghai gallery and pieces will also be shown at Tate Exchange Liverpool, Mann Island and the Museum of Liverpool. With select works also exhibited within the public realm, this project has been developed to explore and reimagine Shanghai’s everyday reality, within the city of Liverpool.

Taking place at the same time as the 10th Liverpool Biennial, This is Shanghai is the second of three chapters of China Dream, a festival designed to explore and understand contemporary Chinese culture, the celebrations for Liverpool 2018, marking the city’s tenth anniversary of holding the title of European Capital of Culture in 2008. Curator Jiang Jiehong is originally from Shanghai and has lived in the UK in 1998. Travelling regularly and working between the two countries in the last some twenty years, he has a unique understanding of cultural differences and exchanges. In this project, Jiang has invited artists Liang Yue, Lu Pingyuan, Shi Yong, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong, Yang Zhenzhong, Yu Ji, Yuan Gong, Zhang Peili and Zhou Xiaohu, who are either Shanghai natives or those who have migrated from the rest of China, to present an impression of Shanghai’s dynamic urban life and complex cultural identity to British audiences.