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2015 UABB (SZ) Curatorial Team and Exhibition Theme Announced.

2015 Shenzhen Urbanism \ Architecture Bi-City Biennale

Re-living the City

Shenzhen Urbanism/Architecture Bi-City Biennale Organizing Committee officially announced matters related to the curatorial team, for the 2015 Shenzhen-Hong Kong Urbanism\ Architecture Bi-City Biennale (Shenzhen) [here in after referred to as “UABB (SZ)”].

The 2015 UABB(SZ) curatorial team includes: Aaron Betsky, Alfredo Brillembourg & Hubert Klumpner, Doreen Heng Liu, and the team will collaborate with ETH Zurich to jointly complete this session’s curatorial work.

The theme of UABB(SZ) 2015 is “Re-living the City“. UABB(SZ) will argue that we need to open up, reuse, and rethink the cities, buildings, and spaces we already have. It will survey the best examples of tactical urbanism, showing how we can connect people to each other and their places by design. It will use the Pearl River Delta as an example of such ground-up urbanism.

In terms of exhibition form, the Biennale will bring together architects, designers, and artists who make work by hunting and gathering together existing materials and forms, and will ask them to create a collective Collage 3D City on site. It will provide visitors with exposure to and interaction with those makers who use the latest technology, as well as traditional craft, to let us all make or remake our own spaces. It will celebrate an urban scene filled with food, music, and social interaction. It will use technology to let us all participate in figuring out how to make our world better.

2015 UABB (SZ) Chief Curator recruitment process was conducted all over the world for a period of nearly six months, initiated in March 2014. The process was preliminarily handled by the Secretariat of Shenzhen Urbanism\ Architecture Bi-City Biennale Organizing Committee, followed by online voting as well two rounds of on-site selection and reviews by the 2015 Shenzhen Urbanism \ Architecture Bi-City Biennale Academic Committee, and ultimately finalized by the Organizing Committee.

In order to continue and strengthen the triggered results of 2013 UABB (SZ), Shekou continues to be chosen as the exhibition venue for 2015 UABB (SZ). A second exhibition venue is also planned, to further demonstrate geographical features and cultural characteristics of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. The curatorial team said that compared to previous sessions, this year’s UABB will be a diachronic urban process, and the backend and frontend preparation work will also become part of the exhibition. A variety of activities will be held throughout the city, to present a richer experience for the audience.

Aaron Betsky is a critic and curator, and worked as Director of the 11th Venice International Architecture Biennale. Alfredo Brillembourg, co-principal in the international design firm Urban-Think Tank (U-TT), and has held a Chair of Architecture and Urban Design at the Swiss Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). Along with Brillembourg, Hubert Klumpner currently serves as Dean of the Department of Architecture, ETH Zurich. Doreen Heng Liu, Founder & Principal of NODE architecture & urbamism (Nansha Original Design) in the Pearl River Delta, and has been teaching at the School of Architecture, Chinese University of Hong Kong as an adjunct Associate Professor.

Image: Aaron Betsky. Courtesy Shenzhen Urbanism \ Architecture Bi-City Biennale.