Giovani Artisti italiani

MARCELLA CAMPA e STEFANO AVESANI lavorano insieme dal 1998 partecipando a vari concorsi di architettura e design. Dal 2002 si dedicano allo studio dello sviluppo urbano e delle trasformazioni della città cinese contemporanea. Conseguita la laurea in architettura nel 2004, nel gennaio 2005 curano il numero monografico della rivista Area su arte e architettura contemporanea in Cina. Nel giugno 2005 vincono il premio internazionale Archiprix a Glasgow con un progetto coordinato per una strategia di recupero dei quartieri Hutong di Pechino e Lilong di Shanghai. Nell’ottobre 2005 si trasferiscono in Cina per tre anni, dove iniziano a lavorare al progetto artistico Instant Hutong e ad una ricerca parallela sull’habitat cinese contemporaneo. Marcella Campa é stata selezionata tra i vincitori del premio della fondazione Pollock-Krasner per il 2010. Vivono e lavorano tra Italia e Cina.

INSTANT HUTONG is an art project created to record as well as draw people’s attention onto traditional patterns of neighbourhoods, courtyards and lanes in Beijing, all of which are threatened by construction development. This work explores both spatial and social aspects of the traditional Hutong urban tissue and the community of people living in it. It is organized as a series of art pieces and installations on the border between art, social investigation and urban research with the aim of generating and stimulating an open debate. The work currently involves issues such as density, gentrification, human relationships and the concept of physical space, as well as property speculation and the fast pace disappearance of the sense of community and identity. These issues are expressed through merging the social sphere with the aesthetic one. The Hutong Districts in Beijing used to form a large continuous tissue built of one storey courtyard houses (Siheyuan) which filled the spaces in-between the alleys (Hutong in the local language). The buildings forming each Siheyuan are organized in a sequence of courts. The spaces of Siheyuan have proven very adaptable to changes during different historical periods. In the past 60 years, following the strategy of redistribution of dwellings, houses that had originally been occupied by one single family, were then assigned to several nuclei. Due to the changes in living conditions, a singular new concept of living has developed among the Hutong Districts, the distinctive traits of which are density, capability of adaptation, neighborhood relationships and a “street-oriented” lifestyle. Following the recent extensive demolitions, such Hutong culture is nowadays undergoing the risk of destruction. The Instant Hutong project aims at increasing the awareness of such distinctive culture, offering new ways of looking at the Hutong districts while actively involving its inhabitants to be part of the project and interact with it during the public events organized inside the courtyards and adjacent lanes.

info [at] instanthutong [dot] com

www.instanthutong.com