The venue of 2017-2018 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (Shenzhen) themed on “ Cities, Grow in Difference” is held at Nantou Old Town which also named “ nine street” with neighbourhood more than 15000 people live on 0.07 sq Km.  The vendors inside the village are from Hunan, Sichuan and Guangdong. 

Meng Yan, the curator of this year wrote in an article “ Nantou is a mini version of entire Shenzhen urban development, what Nantou needs are the improvement in the quality of life and cultural renaissance instead of spatial reform.”

The exhibition spreads all over the lanes, alleys, parks and residences throughout the town, in responding to what George Brecht once said,

The exhibition divided into two sections – “Urban Village” & “Art Making City”. The main themed exhibition, “Urban Village” section with the subtitle of “ Hybridity and Coexistence” invites researchers on urban villages and related issues and draws on experiences of the urban villages not only in Shenzhen but worldwide. 

Another large section called ‘ Art Making City’ engages with contemporary art not only exhibiting in the media room, game room, future room but also expanded way beyond its confines and included outdoor installations by architects Atelier Bow-Wow and MVRDV.

Once you passed through the ticket entrance, the first thing you see is the colourful installation by MVRDV that you wouldn’t be able to miss.

Then on your left and beyond are all the disused factories and outdoor space contain full of artwork, animations, films, drawings, models and other materials. I have boiled down a few selection to share.

“(W)ego House” by The Why Factory and MVRDV

The Ego house is a future vision project presenting how users must negotiate with each other to optimize the use of limited urban space.

“The Future City is Wide: Products that will Change our Cities” by The Why Factory

The Film installation questions what the urban forms might look like in the future. It was a 10-year research.

“The Samsara of Building No.42 on Dirty Street “ by Li Han, Hu Yan ( Drawing Architecture Studio)

The 10 years project has captured Sanlitun in Beijing as a miniature City Village. “ Here you can see two forces, one from the bottom up civil power, one from the top down from the power of administration, I always think that the city’s best state is to have a balance between multiple forces.” said the artist.

“ Irregular Development” by Only If 

The project looks at the New York City’s “urban villages”- argues there are small irregular shape lots produced by diagonally intersecting streets, train easements, surveying accidents or historical land subdivision before the city grid. The team has analysis and reveal other forms of living of these lots.