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Monthly Archives: 04/2015

Art+Village+City: Post-Travel Update

Posted on by Genise Choy
Filed under: Art, Art+Village+City, China

Art+Village+City in the Pearl River Delta is one of two interdisciplinary courses being sponsored by the Global Urban Humanities Initiative in Spring 2015. Students in this research studio are utilizing a variety of research methods from interviews to video documentation to explore the ongoing evolution of relationships between urban and rural spaces and people, and the emerging role of the arts in China’s Pearl River Delta.

From March 18th to April 3rd, the students and faculty of the Art+Village+City in the Pearl River Delta Studio visited the three mega cities of the Pearl River Delta: Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. Working in small teams, students surveyed over fifteen neighborhoods, urbanized villages, theme parks, commercial districts, and production centers of art, creative industry and cultural heritage. They interviewed artists, activists, art teachers, designers, performers, and villagers.

 


Image courtesy of José Figueroa

 

As he has done throughout the course, Berkeley MFA student José Figueroa (Art Practice) documented in drawing and watercolor our discussions and group meetings in cafes, restaurants and on the road. Our March 24th journey took some of the studio members on the highway running along the historic shorelines of the Pearl River Delta, from Shenzhen’s Shekou and new Qianhai financial district, to Guangzhou’s Xiaozhou Art Village.

 

 

Since our return, the studio has been archiving and cataloguing the extensive amount of photographic, ethnographic, video, and ephemeral materials collected, which will be presented in a public exhibition at UCB, and in various cities of the PRD in Fall 2015.