One of the cities in China most celebrated for its historical and cultural significance, Changsha is well known for its role in the ancient conflict the Chu-Han Contention, as home to cultural giants Qu Yuan and Jia Yi, and as the site of the celebrated Yuelu Academy. The city’s folk culture, historical and archaeological remains, and academic legacy each in their own way provide a perspective on how it was a place where the common folk, gentry, and scholars all lived cheek by jowl. Turning to the present day, supported by this historical and cultural basis, culture and entertainment have become some of Changsha’s major industries, with new so-called “Hunan Armies” winning fame in the broadcast arts, publishing, and performance, all while spreading influences from local culture. On an international stage, Changsha is the first city in China to be recognized as a UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts, testament to its successes in cultural innovation and the competitiveness of its cultural industries. Changsha also enjoys a popular reputation as a paradise for foodies and as a twenty-four-hour “city that never sleeps,” making its downtown a major draw for cultural consumption, socializing and entertainment. Changsha’s urban culture provides the foundation for the CSIFS 2023 public art project, titled “Everyday Wonder,” a major event and opportunity for the whole city to gather together in a collective, open, and interactive name.

The event takes its theme and Chinese title from the Changsha dialect phrase jianzáng or gàzáng, which originally referred to selecting a venue to erect a temporary performance stage, and so by extension came to mean something like “getting the show on the road.” The use of Changsha dialect leverages the energy of local culture and captures all the flavours and feelings of this particular place. The project seeks to harness the force of the local language as a driver for the whole event and a way to infuse it with energy, as well as to externalize it to become a dynamic for our art happening. Changsha’s local character and attitude has been summed up as “patient” “not afraid of hard work” and “go-get-’em.” It is an energy drawn from this place, from these rivers and lakes, and the type of self-reliant creativity that is fostered where the local dialect is not a standard Mandarin. “Everyday Wonder” engages with matters close to everyday life and with the near future soon to come, while at the same time concerning itself with what links people to each other and people to an urban space. The project explores a specific local context from an international perspective and treats the general public here as joint actors in the activation of an art event.

The French critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud has argued that, beyond its commercial aspects and semantic value, art presents as a social intermediary. The energy of the social medium comes from establish new ties in wider social and interpersonal interactions. The specific character of the venues in a public art project are what give it its particularity, with the art that takes place here shifting from a concern with its own materiality to one for the local characteristics of place in a way that will allow its audience to break away from habitual habits of behaviour to build anew their links with other people and with this place.

“Everyday Wonder” is co-hosted by Culture, Tourism and Sports Bureau of Furong District and Changsha IFS under the direction of the Changsha Bureau of Culture, Tourism, Radio and Television, with You Yang, Art Director, UCCA Group, and Deputy Director, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, as specially invited artistic consultant. The project is a joint presentation by UCCA Lab, Cracking Art, and KUÀ Studio. Fifteen individual artists and groups from around the world have been invited to take part in the creation and exhibition of seven different art assemblages. UCCA Lab Curator Yoojin Tang is working together with four artists and groups—Clédat & Petitpierre, Network Party, People’s Architecture Office, and Wen Jie Junjie—between 28th, April and 31st, August to present art that will be shared over the more than four months of public programs. Starting from 15th,July till 31st,August, Italian Cracking Art group will host its debut Eco-public art exhibition, placing 62 animal sculptures made from regenerated plastic in Changsha IFS. On the other hand, from 22nd, April to 30th, September, KUÀ Studio will present their experimental exhibition in collaboration with ten individual artists and groups, themed with “Energy Co., Ltd.” and “Super Co+op” , divided into two phases. “Energy Co., Ltd.” marks the first phase of the exhibition from 22nd, April to 30th, June, jointly collaborated with four cutting-edge artists, namely Li Qijing, Mao Hanxiao, Sun Yuqian and Xia Ye. It creates an environment which allows public to escape from reality for a short bit. Meanwhile, from 7th, July to 30th, September, “Super Co+op” will work with agricultural scientists in Hunan and a number of illustrators and designers to curate a brand-new “cooperative” experience in Changsha IFS. 

Artists from different places and diverse cultural backgrounds meet and interact in the city and extend their art out into its everyday life, bringing networks of human relationships into play as they create linkages with the wider public.