Shanghairen cover

  • chuan jia

During this new year, far away from the homeland, I remake a previous cover project into motion. I didn't return to this city after the pandemic, considering the changes in my work, I may no longer have the opportunity to live in there in the future, I want to dedicate this artwork as my farewell to the city.

What I have drawn is not a real place in the Yuyuan Garden; rather the memory of the only way I used to travel to work. It is basically a miniature of the city: there are unique traditional characteristics captured brick by brick, yet it actually comprises a short hundred years of glory.
I perceive a very outdated and noisy trade market, but also glimpses of many hidden cultural eras and fashionable crossovers. People who pass through here, office workers, tourists, and local residents will be lost in the torrent of architecture. They move through a vibrant matrix of cultural symbols, old traditional signs, characteristically local patterns, and logos of international luxury goods. As they walk around they gradually forget this city, brick by brick, just as a tailor forgets fragments of colorful cloth that drop to the floor after cutting.