All posts tagged: Wu Wei Creative Park

Industrial living

I’m in what was once an old warehouse in an industrial park in the northern district of Yangpu, a good distance from central Shanghai. This is the home of Jonas, his wife Nina and their daughter Anna. It is also here that Jonas has his showroom and workshop, Nina has her photo studio and where both of them have their office. It’s obvious that creativity is central in this home. The industrial building in itself and the showroom that takes up most of the ground floor reinforces the feeling of it being more of a workplace than a home. But outside the entrance a collection of potted plants creates a homely feel in an otherwise industrial environment. The names Jonas + Nina + Anna painted on the huge rusty metal door, which is their front door, indicates that this is a home too. Entering their home I’m initially struck by the vastness of the space and then by the huge variety of objects placed around the large room, all of them made by Jonas. Directly …

Shanghai part III

  I met the talented artist Xi one day and she took me to her recent installation, Check-in on Nanchang Road. Up one floor on creaky wooden stairs to a small apartment in an old Shanghai building she has created a totally white room filled with white objects and foam balls. It was a quite extraordinary feeling being there. Her intention is for people to rent it for 24 hours, to disconnect from the outside world and just experience being in this space, filled with whiteness. There is a bed to sleep in and odd pieces of old furniture standing topsy-turvy around the room, half buried in the foam balls. All white or painted white. She is very interested in how environments affect people. “This is art-rental, you rent a space with unlimited possibilities. It will not exist for long, so that no one can possess it permanently”, she explained. Xi is currently designing her next project that is going to be about furniture that doesn’t have a function. Sounds intriguing! Another great experience was …