As the forces of globalization and explosive growth constantly change Chinese cities, some artists have focused on the lost past, with painted or photographed memories of disappearing alleyways or architecture of antiquity.

The first Guangzhou Triennial, held in 2002, included some of these retro-artworks. But this year's second Triennial is aimed in the opposite direction of time. The cross-cultural coalition of curators organizing the show have brought together a global mix of artists, architects, digital directors and musicians to co-create the future.

China's race into "urbanization is probably the world's most spectacular," said Hou Hanru, an internationally respected curator and expert on the growth of mega-cities based in Paris.

And the Pearl River Delta, a cluster of southern Chinese cities that stretch from Hong Kong and Shenzhen to Zhuhai, Macao and Guangzhou, is becoming "the globe's biggest lab for globalization and fast-paced urbanization," added Hou.

"In the Pearl River Delta, everything is dynamic (and) artists have more freedom to create in these new conditions," said Hou, who was born in Guangzhou but now teaches at universities and curates cutting-edge shows across Europe.

Hou said he and the other curators of the second Guangzhou Triennial wanted to create a globe-spanning, interactive platform for designers of everything from books or buildings to cinema or cities to meet and together chart out alternative futures for the delta.

To that end, organizers of the triennial have set up a series of workshops that involve the long-term collaboration of more than 50 international and Chinese artists and architects, and the entire city has been transformed into a vast canvas for their works.

The triennial's Chinese and European curators have also created a world-class website, in Chinese and English, at www.gztriennial.org to link the workshops and exhibitions up with participants and fans across the planet.

"By hosting a series of regular workshops with local and international practitioners from different disciplines as markers for rethinking the triennial as a viable platform for artistic production, we hope to generate lively discussions and related publications on imaginative visions of the future," Hou said.

The mobile workshops, which have been moved from Guangzhou, Beijing and Hong Kong since being launched almost a year ago, focus on how "cultural creatives" can use the experimental space that is emerging in ever-expanding Chinese cities or the widening webs linking them with countless cosmopolitan centres worldwide.

Joining the workshops are leading architecture studios, magazine editors, urban think-tanks and digerati from China and Europe.

Yung Ho Chang, who studied building design at the University of California at Berkeley before setting up his Atelier Feichang Jianzhu and heading Beijing University's Graduate Centre for Architecture, "teamed up with local students to probe how dense a city can become," said Hou. Chang is also working with a Guangzhou-based artist on an exhibition for the triennial.

The editor of Domus (www.domusweb.it/), an Italian magazine on art, building and city design, is helping sponsor the triennial as well as joining it. Domus' Stefano Boeri focuses on how ever-morphing geographies, whether in Europe or China, affect individual identities.

Evolving Cities

During a recent Guangzhou Triennial workshop held at the Millennium Art Museum in Beijing, Dutch architect Neville Mars talked about how China's economic, population and building boom is speeding ahead of efforts to plan the evolution of cities across the country.

"Almost all city planning is constantly behind reality due to the immense scale and pace of urbanization in China," Mars said.

To track and explore alternatives on the emergence of mega-cities here, Mars and fellow Netherlands native Saskia Vendel helped start a Beijing-headquartered think-tank called the Dynamic City Foundation (www.dynamiccity.org).

The group, which now includes a mix of urban planners, engineers, graphic designers, artists and photographers stretching from Beijing to Amsterdam to London, will preview its upcoming book, "The Chinese Dream: A Society Under Construction," at the Guangzhou Triennial.

Mars explained that the book will be launched simultaneously with a new, hyper-interactive Web-based platform designed to enable architects, artists and utopians across the world to work with counterparts here to ponder and paint the future.

He added that members of Dynamic City and of the triennial are investigating new ways to keep up with the speed of change here. He says both groups aim to use "a cross-media approach and new ways of thinking to match the scale of urbanization in China."

D-Lab

Hou Hanru said the Guangdong Museum of Art (www.gdmoa.org/), the main organizer of and venue for the triennial, has similarly created a "Delta Laboratory, which bridges art, architecture, urban study and cultural activism."

He added that the D-Lab and workshops offer a dynamic stage for "evolving research, creation and cultural exchanges (that) fundamentally subverts conventional exhibition curatorial models."

The museum's director, Wang Huangsheng, said he hopes the triennial will broaden the art centre's matrix of cross-cultural exchanges and speed up its mission of generating and collecting contemporary art, architecture, photography and film.

The second triennial's main exhibition will open in mid-November and run through mid-January of 2006.

Museum curator Guo Xiaoyan, also one of the main organizers of the Guangzhou Triennial, said that since opening in 1997, the Guangdong Museum of Art has launched twin drives to showcase modern Chinese art and exhibit major works from the West.

The museum's 300-plus exhibitions, she added, have included "Piet Mondrian in China," "The Master's Mind: Picasso's Prints," "Salvador Dali: A Journey into Fantasy," and "The Thinker: Rodin's Art Exhibition."

Curator Hou, meanwhile, said that the winds of globalization, modernization and urbanization now rushing across China "are similar to those propelling Europe's opening during the Renaissance."

"In the West, it took hundreds of years for the Renaissance to take off in China, the Renaissance will be much faster, and will unfold in decades rather than centuries."

(China Daily November 3, 2005)