The Organizing Committee of the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (Shenzhen) (“UABB (Shenzhen)”) announced the team of Chief Curators of 2019 UABB (Shenzhen), which includes Architect and Director of MIT Senseable City Lab Carlo Ratti, CAE Academician Meng Jianmin and famous curator and art critic Fabio Cavallucci.
In addition to the three Chief Curators, the South China-Torino Collaboration Lab (a joint research center of Politecnico di Torino and South China University of Technology) will join as Academic Curator in the persons of Directors Sun Yimin and Michele Bonino.
The Science and Human Imagination Research Center of Southern University of Science and Technology, in the person of Wu Yan and the Politecnico di Milano, in the person of the Vice–Dean of the School of Architecture Adalberto Del Bo will take part into the curatorial team as Co-Curators.
Integrating the top energy from such fields as urbanism, architecture, technology, contemporary art and science fiction, the curatorial team of 2019 UABB (Shenzhen) represents a remarkable cross-disciplinary combination that aims to present a highly pioneering, creative and inspiring biennale.
The theme direction of 2019 UABB (Shenzhen) is “Urban Space + Technological Innovation”. 2019 UABB (Shenzhen) will explore the new phenomena brought about by digital revolution that has unfolded in parallel with the urbanization process, and directly confront the most relevant key topics in today’s cities. Taking the attention to “people” as an important premise, it will reflect on urbanism and architecture in ways beyond physical boundaries, and discuss how human could take more initiative to be the true subject of technological cities. The biennale will focus on the improvement of urban experiences as result of modern science and technology; meanwhile conduct a critical rethinking on the institutional constraints thus caused.
During the biennale, thinkers and practitioners from different cultural fields and different disciplinary backgrounds such as architects, planners, artists, writers, philosophers and sociologists will meet for brainstorming and produce multi-perspective and brand-new creative works. It is tentatively decided that Liu Cixin, the famous science fiction writer and the author of The Three-Body Problem, and Wlodek Goldkorn, Polish journalist and writer will act as special academic advisers and create original works for the biennale, and that China’s important contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang will also present a tailored work for 2019 UABB (Shenzhen).
Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB) is currently the only biennial exhibition in the world that is based exclusively on the set themes of URBANISM AND URBANIZATION. Co-organized by the two neighboring and closely interacting cities of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, UABB situates itself within the regional context of the rapidly urbanizing Pearl River Delta, concerns itself with globally common urban issues, extensively communicates and interacts with the wider public, is presented using expressions of contemporary visual culture, and engages in international and avant-garde dimensions as well as discourses of public interest.
Read our past coverage of the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture - Hong Kong, Shenzhen.
Chief Curators:
Carlo Ratti, Meng Jianmin, Fabio Cavallucci
Academic Curator:
South China-Torino Collaboration Lab (SCUT - Sun Yimin; Politecnico di Torino - Michele Bonino)
Co-Curators:
Science and Human Imagination Center of Southern University of Science and Technology (Wu Yan), Politecnico di Milano (Adalberto Del Bo).
Executive Curators:
Daniele Belleri [CRA], Edoardo Bruno, Chen Qiufan, Manuela Lietti, Wang Kuan, Xu Haohao, Zhang Li
