City-making through exhibition-making: A retrospective study of the multifaceted-role of UABB in Shenzhen and Hong Kong
Location
Lingnan University / Online Session via Zoom
Start Date
21-5-2021 2:00 PM
End Date
21-5-2021 4:00 PM
Description
After 15 years of experimentation, the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB) has become the major biennale both exhibiting and co-creating the complex and contradictory urban dynamics of the region. As a node of the macro-network of global biennalization phenomenon, the UABB has developed its own way to reflect the emerging discontent on the instrumentalization of biennales through its active production of discourses and places. Situating the UABB in the global and local flows of cultural capitals, this paper tries to unpack the multifacetedrole of UABB in exhibition-making, city-making and community-making at different scales. This paper puts forward the proposition of "the UABB as methods" for both urban research and spatial practice to examine the socio-political dynamics through curating and representing urban culture in the region. A retrospective and comparative survey of the long-term impacts that UABB has left on the exhibition venues after the biennales in the two cities is constructed to understand the UABB's potentials and limitations in "city-making" as primarily an "exhibition-making" practice. Based on these findings, this paper speculates an alternative curatorial strategy for the UABB which combines community-based participatory exhibition and multi-scalar urban intervention as one inter-disciplinary exhibition-making complex. The active site-engaging exhibition-making in the past and future will then enable "the UABB as methods" to continuously evolve and respond to the socio-political dynamics through rigorous spatial and curatorial practices and ultimately to enable potential social innovations.
Recommended Citation
Zhou, Z. (2021, May). City-making through exhibition-making: A retrospective study of the multifaceted-role of UABB in Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Presented at Then and Now: Collecting Art and Exhibiting Cultures in Asia Conference, Lingnan University, Hong Kong.
City-making through exhibition-making: A retrospective study of the multifaceted-role of UABB in Shenzhen and Hong Kong
Lingnan University / Online Session via Zoom
After 15 years of experimentation, the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB) has become the major biennale both exhibiting and co-creating the complex and contradictory urban dynamics of the region. As a node of the macro-network of global biennalization phenomenon, the UABB has developed its own way to reflect the emerging discontent on the instrumentalization of biennales through its active production of discourses and places. Situating the UABB in the global and local flows of cultural capitals, this paper tries to unpack the multifacetedrole of UABB in exhibition-making, city-making and community-making at different scales. This paper puts forward the proposition of "the UABB as methods" for both urban research and spatial practice to examine the socio-political dynamics through curating and representing urban culture in the region. A retrospective and comparative survey of the long-term impacts that UABB has left on the exhibition venues after the biennales in the two cities is constructed to understand the UABB's potentials and limitations in "city-making" as primarily an "exhibition-making" practice. Based on these findings, this paper speculates an alternative curatorial strategy for the UABB which combines community-based participatory exhibition and multi-scalar urban intervention as one inter-disciplinary exhibition-making complex. The active site-engaging exhibition-making in the past and future will then enable "the UABB as methods" to continuously evolve and respond to the socio-political dynamics through rigorous spatial and curatorial practices and ultimately to enable potential social innovations.