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URBAN CARPET
Series of 8 maps embroidered on canvas with the same technique of the propaganda slogans realized on large fabric and used by the communist party during the seventies, which have been lately filled with white thread wool insertions. The 8 maps depict different Hutong areas in downtown Beijing, with a size of approximately one square kilometre each and a population of 30000; these areas have been isolated as autonomous towns within the big city. Since 2009 the carpets have been shown to the Hutong dwellers trough street public temporary events, hanging them up on ropes, wires and threads commonly used by local Beijing residents for their clothes to dry.
embroidery on canvas, 200x200cm, 2009 2011 Street Art, Urbanism, Visual Arts -
BEIJING VISION
Collage of Hutong districts and parts of downtown Beijing reassembled as a large imaginary city
BEIJING VISION MODEL
white carved corian board
300x170 cm 2007
470x850 cm 2011 2011 Sculpting, Urbanism, Visual Arts -
BLINKING CITY stencil
Blinking City is a project investigating the inadequacy of traditional maps for city environments characterized by fast pace transformation and urban growth. As soon as the map is done, the city it describes has already gone. We transferred one of the Blinking City pattern, based on a collage of several Hutong neighbourhoods of Beijing, onto a wall of a dilapidated courtyard house in Xianyukou district, located in the core of the city.
variable dimension, stencil on wall, 2011
Thanks to game designer Eric Zimmerman and architect Nathalie Pozzi, who wrote the text for the legenda giving a meaning to each colour:
Generals hide under the kitchen table. Newspaper crossword puzzles clean the windowpan. A ball
lands on the neighbor’s roof. In the memory of a broken television, pixels flicker. The lottery disappoints another player. A coin flips. Bottles from sports fans crowd the bar. Ready? Go.
www.ericzimmerman.com
www.nakworks.com 2011 Graffiti Arts, Street Art, Urbanism -
BLINKING CITY
2011
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IDENTITY
Platform made of 1500 beijing grey bricks and 1500 red chinese plastic stamps placed on it. Stamps have a central role in Chinese people’s life: they use them to confirm agreements and validate their actions. In a certain way loosing your stamp is like loosing your own identity. Each stamp is not carrying a name but it has been carved with a fragment of map, a group of houses, a piece of city, to mark the relationship and identification between people and their living space.
IDENTITY 1500 red stamps on 1500 beijing bricks 2011 Architecture, Urbanism, Visual Arts -
CUN
For the first time ever in human history, 50% of human population is living in cities or urban centers. In traditionally rural China the emergency of this phenomena assumes the form of a high pace revolution, with an invasion of urban products to the countryside. The current governmental Five Year Plan placed several key issues to help the recently largely ignored rural areas and to elevate the conditions of farmers and rural population. The related risk is to turn upside down a whole rural culture overlapping new consumerist urban models on it.
CUN is the experience of crossing the rural territory trough re-contextualized maps and pictures representing the encounters with farmers and villages along the way. Maps are carried by local inhabitants and thus elaborated indicating the chosen paths, encounter’s places, feelings and additional information derived from the personal experience and outcome of walking the land.
variable dimension.
Reflective plastic and acryl painting on canvas.
2010-2011 - ongoing
street happenings 2010-2011 2010 Visual Arts, Urbanism, Street Art -
ISLANDS
Islands is a set of urban planning conceptual models - under construction.
2011
Sculpting, Urbanism, Visual Arts
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PAGLIONI
A series of colourful straw mats made with people of rural Hebei. Each year in autumn, in the months of October and November, the residents of nearby villages are gathering to produce straw mats with scraps of the harvest, which are used to protect the hothouses during the winter. We added colours to the normal production process creating special pieces.
PAGLIONI variable dimension, acrylic on straw mat. 2010 2010 Visual Arts, Street Art -
LOAD CAPACITY
The performance is a reflection on the behaviour of people in a situation of forced density, much like rapidly developing cities like Beijing. This happened in Hutong throughout the city, which people subdivided and moved into, than subdivided again. But you can experience a temporary feeling of forced density in different situations such a crowded elevator, a waiting line in the post office, a subway train or a bus in the rush hours. In all these cases it will be much remarkable here in China than everywhere else.
We want to explore this concept through this experiment of trying to reach load capacity of one house in a typical Beijing courtyard. Everyone will walk up to the door of the house, moving in whatever way they wish, open the door, step inside and close the door. This will continue until either the room is full, or everyone is inside. To coordinate an event with so many people was an experiment for us as well. Thanks to Bartosz Dalewski and Giacomo Butte, many thanks to everyone who took part in it and made it happen 2011 Performing Arts, Street Art -
TOORCI
Shuttle islands is a set of space devices to play with the elements that make up the city environment. They will pop up on walkways, hide in a park, be on display in a shop, floating in the middle of a lake, to question and influence the perception of spaces from unpredicted points of view.
2011 2011 Sculpting, Visual Arts, Street Art -
URBAN CARPET 5 exhibitions
Carpets are representing different maps of Hutong areas with a size of approximately one square kilometre and a population of 30000. Each of them has been isolated and presented as autonomous town within the big city. They are embroidered by hand with the same technique of the propaganda slogans on large fabrics used by the communist party during the seventies. The carpets have been filled with white wire wool insertions.
Street public temporary events happening all along year 2009 in order to share the Instant Hutong project with people and bring it back to the city districts it was inspired from. During the Carpet surprise happenings, fragments of Instant Hutong project will be shown to the Hutong dwellers inside the courtyards and on the public lanes. Showing the work to the Hutong dwellers is an exhibition way which is sympathetic to the urban and social anarchic structure of the Hutong itself.
2011 Fine Arts, Visual Arts, Urbanism
