Permanent Migrants
7 Dec 2009 – 15 Feb 2010

Bai Xiaoci, Chu Yun, Guy Delisle, Liu Chuang, Christian Jankowski, Jiang Zhi, Daniel Knorr, MAP OFFICE, Yang Yong.

INHERITANCE – SHENZHEN Project Space

www.inhsz.com
www.inheritanceprojects.org



Permanent Migrants is the first exhibition to be held at Inheritance – Shenzhen 传承：深圳, a project space in urban Shenzhen.

Retrospective in nature, the exhibition presents artworks that are specific to the city of Shenzhen. It is an attempt at proposing just one of many alternative art histories of the very young city. The artists - many current or former residents - have spent considerable time engaging with the anomalous specificities of Shenzhen.

The title of the exhibition, Permanent Migrants refers to the entirely migrant population of Shenzhen including its artists. Moreover, it brings into question the increasingly universal nature of contemporary visual culture by questioning traditionally geographically specific art histories.

In his photographic project, Bai Xiaoci documents on an epic scale the lives of the migrant habitants of Shenzhen. Jiang Zhi and Yang Yong comment on the consequences of rapid development in their images. Antithetic to such themes, Chu Yun’s intimate work escapes the visual dominance of urbanization and focuses on the daily lives of his Shenzhen co-habitants.

Liu Chuang’s unsettling work deals with the identity of an individual anonymous Shenzhener while both MAP OFFICE’s and Christian Jankowski’s works involve the documentation of and the active participation of factory workers. Daniel Knorr’s contribution to Permanent Migrants reverses the dynamic nature of the city by installing a LED light that tells the gallery of his distant location and in his artists book, by collecting objects found the Shenzhen streets and burying them between the pages. Guy Delisle’s work predates these as an account of nascent Shenzhen in his graphic novel, Shenzhen from his time as a manager in an outsourced animation company in the 1990’s.


Permanent Migrants is an exhibition that proudly recognizes the youthful art history of Shenzhen by temporarily pausing its perpetual dynamism.

Curator: Claire Louise Staunton Assistant Curator: Laura Guy

No.104 Block 10
Tangxia Community
Hua Xia Road
Nanshan District
Shenzhen Guangdong
Metro: Shi Jie Zhi Chuang


INHERITANCE – SHENZHEN

A temporary transient project space in the new town of Shenzhen.

No.104 Block 10
Tangxia Community
Hua Xia Road
Nanshan District
Shenzhen Guangdong
Metro: Shi Jie Zhi Chuang

www.inhsz.com





Inheritance – Shenzhen 传承：深圳 is a temporary non-profit project space in the heart of Bai Shi Zhou, an urban village in Shenzhen. Located in a 150m2 former Chinese medicine shop, INH-SZ will host an exhibition, performance, music and film programme, commission new artworks, foster collaborations between local and international artists and build a publicly accessible contextual library from December 2009 until April 2010.

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 Ltd 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 programme 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. 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 as a way to recognize the artistic heritage of the young city.

The INH-SZ project space has been invited to open alongside the 7th of December as an independent satellite with the Hong Kong/Shenzhen Biennial of Urbanism and Architecture 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.

Thanks to/ Asia Art Archive, Arthub Asia, British Council Connections Through Culture, Canadian Consulate, Vision Forum Linkoping Universitet, Shenzhen Radio, PRSFoundation.



Contact/

Co-director, Claire Louise Staunton
Email: Claire@inheritanceprojects
Phone UK: (+44)7979 923325
Phone China: (+86)13534208604

Co-director, Bai Xiaoci
Email: Lenser@gmail.com
Phone: (+86)13510019740

Assistant Curator, Laura Guy
Email: Laura@inheritanceprojects.org

Administrator, Chesta Yau
Email: Chesta@inheritanceprojects.org
Phone: (+86)13480173335

Administrative Assistant, Jessica Wang
Email: Jessica@inheritanceprojects.org

UK Address/

Inheritance Projects Ltd.
5 Vinson House, Cranston Estate
New North Rd
London N1 6TS UK