Your Image Here is a public artwork that will consist of a large-scale photo projection in Shanghai, an emerging global financial center. We intend to project photographs (and possibly video) of the faces of the rural populace onto the Shanghai World Financial Center. This edifice, serving as the façade of Shanghai’s growing urbanization will also function as the mirror upon which an otherwise concealed social identity is reflected within the country and to the world beyond. Furthermore, the juxtaposition of images of poverty on the gleaming manmade surfaces of a city skyscraper within a financial landscape will highlight the irony of China’s economic crisis. Ideally, this artwork will prove successful in the creation of an illusion of high-fashion advertisement, appealing to the material greed and wealth in the larger metropolitan area. If we can actually “sell” these images as chic rather than as real, we may ultimately possess a power to reach those people with means to affect real change.
Your Image Here is envisioned as a social movement spurred by art, and the projection dates of May 23-27 in Shanghai as the catalyst for an explosion of activism in China. This website (www.yourimagehere.blogspot.com) has been set up as a platform for the involvement of citizens of the country. The original five images will be available for download and projection from the website, and more images taken by community journalists can be uploaded onto the site and shared across the cities of China.
From an artistic standpoint, this project will highlight the extent to which awareness can affect perception, reflected in our own country with the high-profile Americans’ painting of the Environmental movement as a trend. Krzysztof Wodiczko (1943-) creates site-specific slide and video projections and serves as a source for this project. Wodiczko has directed over 70 Public Projections in areas as diverse as New York, London, Berlin, Madrid, Tijuana, and Hiroshima. Wodiczko’s artwork created a forced dialogue through projections of the homeless onto city buildings in, this proposed project similarly intends to create a moral echo. This message, projected directly into the public sphere, is an attempt to altar the social identity of a country, using consumerism as a communication tool. As Wodiczko uses his works as commentary on political and social issues, we plan to similarly provide a platform on which to stimulate discussions of the economic divergence between the urban rich and rural poor, starting in Shanghai.
From a governmental standpoint, this project has already been launched and has been the subject of discourse for more than a decade. In 2006, China reported a record total of 87,000 street protests -- many of them led by peasants who lost their land to urban developers. Particularly in Beijing, the municipal government has feared that the gap between rich and poor -- one of the most extreme in the world -- could trigger a serious social counter-reaction. Because of the rising position of Shanghai as leader of global finance, and because of the wealth per capita and emphasis on materialism, Shanghai, rather than Beijing was selected as the city offering the greatest foil to the poverty throughout the country. Additionally, because the Shanghai World Financial Center is a product and project of Mori Building Corporation, a leader in urban development worldwide, it seemed especially important to engage this organization proactively in order to avoid future protests by those “peasants” who have either lost their homes or perhaps their employment in the face of a seemingly growing economy.[2]
