2009 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture: City Mobilization :: December 6, 2009 - January 23, 2010 :: Opening: December 6; 6:00 pm :: Conference: December 7-9 :: Marathon Event with Rem Koolhaas and Hans Ulrich Obrist: December 22 :: Main Venue: Shenzhen Civic Square; Sub-Venues: Shenzhenwan Avenue, Yitian Holiday Plaza.

Taking the theme of City Mobilization, this year’s Bi-city Biennale proposes an investigation into the organization and balance of social life within contemporary urban China. In today’s globalized world, we have moved from a model of ‘nationhood’ to ‘city-hood’ where cities must consider themselves in relation to a global network of other cities around the world. In the case of Shenzhen and its immediate neighbor Hong Kong — as represented in the Bi-City Biennale theme — there exists the very real and concrete opportunity for these cities to creatively respond to the challenges of cooperation and interaction between one another, across the Pearl River Delta region and among corresponding other parts of the world. City Mobilization thus aims to invigorate and mobilize the institutional structures and inner systems of the city itself and contribute to the ways in which local inhabitants can take a more active role in the creation, design, adaptation and development of their own environment. Throughout the Bi-city Biennale the forms of art and architecture are applied actively, with participatory or interactive works and installations offering creative ways to envision bottom-up strategies and engage with new and different distributions of power.

Sharply separating this edition of the Bi-city Biennale from its predecessors, Shenzhen Civic Square serves as the main venue, moving the exhibition out of the safe confines of the OCT Loft arts district into a more openly public and widely accessible location. The Bi-city Biennale aims to reclaim this dormant yet politically charged site—built ostensibly for the people of Shenzhen yet rarely put to use—by occupying it with large-scale installations and works that immediately address or reflect upon Shenzhen’s own unique urban condition. In marked distinction to previous editions, nearly all of the works on view have been created on-site in Shenzhen, calling for the mobilization of many forces to realize the potential of the Bi-city Biennale itself.

Chief Curator: Ou Ning
Curators: Beatrice Galilee, Kayoko Ota, Weiwei Shannon, Pauline J. Yao

Participants:

Aberrant Architecture
Acconci Studio
Alles Wird Gut
Alliance Architecture
Lara ALMARCEGUI
Alterazioni Video and AnotherMountainMan
BAI Xiaoci
Ball Nogues
Bjarke Ingels/BIG with Kaspar Astrup SCHRÖDER and Team Jiyo
Mathieu BORYSEVICZ and James BREARLEY/BAU
Bureau des Mésarchitectures
CHEN Zhen
Leroy W. DEMERY, Jr.
DnA Design and Architecture
DRDH
Dry Dairy
FAT
feld72
FENG Guochuan
Franceschini and Allende/Futurefarmers
Sou FUJIMOTO
Fabrizio GALLANTI and Francesca INSULZA
Joseph GRIMA and Jeffrey JOHNSON with Jose ESPARZA
Go West Project
HE Huangyou
HKU Urban Ecologies Research Group and Juan DU
HUANG Zhonghan, LIU Sizhao and LIN Tian
IDU_Architecture
ifdesign
International Festival
Jiakun Architects
Toshihiro KOMATSU
Charlie KOOLHAAS
KUU
LIN Chi Wei
LIU Kuo-Chang
LIU Xiaoliang
The Living
LOT-EK
MAD
Neville MARS/DCF
Maurer United Architects
Hideyuki NAKAYAMA
O.P.E.N. Architecture
OURGROUP and ZHANG Liang
Polit-Sheer-Form Office
Marjetica POTRČ
Reiser & Umemoto
Rigo 23
Thomas SCHERZER
sciSKEW Collaborative
Standard Architecture
Studio Pei-Zhu and ARUP
SVESMI
Tercerunquinto
Momoyo TORIMITSU
Triptyque
URBANUS, LI Shiqiao, Esther LORENZ, Ryan BISHOP, John W P PHILLIPS, Scott LASH and Andrew BENJAMIN
WANG Wei
WEAK! Architects (HSIEH Ying-chun, ROAN Ching-yue and Marco CASAGRANDE)
WORKac
ZHENG Guogu and Yangjiang Calligraphy Group
ZHU Wen