Art before revamp for old campus
RESIDENTS and tourists have been given a last chance to visit the obsolete campus of the city’s prestigious medical workers college on Yuyuan Road which dates back 80 years. It is to be renovated for commercial and cultural purposes in October.
A group of young artists have been invited to create various art installations inside the former campus buildings for an exhibition titled “A Rejuvenation Project” before the buildings are fully revamped.
The original decorations and teaching tools have been preserved in the former classrooms, teachers’ offices, auditorium and dormitories.
The project was unveiled for the 2019 City Life Season of Changning District which started yesterday. The annual cultural and art festival aims to showcase the achievements of the ongoing revamp along the historical road.
Authorities aim to develop artistic and aesthetic designs on the century-old Yuyuan Road, while offering better services and businesses to residents, according to Creater, the firm in charge of revamping the area.
The former Shanghai Workers College of Medical Science is one of the latest projects in the revamping campaign.
The college in the Hongye Garden community served as the training center for junior and senior medical professionals and licensed pharmacists. Most of the city’s certified pharmacists were trained at the college. Its campus was relocated to Feihong Road in Yangpu District in May 2017 and the original site had been abandoned since then.
After years of neglect, the buildings were careworn and scruffy, but the artists have collected the waste and exposed the condition of the structure.
Piles of broken glassware collected from former laboratories, for instance, have been gathered in a room on the top floor of the four-story building and exhibited with projectors and art installations.
“Every site has its specific features and we want to adapt our art creations to the history and environment of the college,” said Ankar Arken, an artist from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region with the Fiu Gallery based on Yuyuan Road.
He created a digital sound installation named “Drop” inside the former headmaster’s office. Water drops down from two infusion tubes collected from the college painted in blue and red, meaning hope and fear, onto a metal plate which is connected with sensors, computer software and two loudspeakers.
Visitors are expected to listen and “watch” the sound of water while considering the meaning of time and history, Arken explained.
Another of his artworks, named “Silent Disco,” is inside the college’s former auditorium. Visitors are asked to wear earphones and dance.
“It is a group activity to pay tribute to the history of the college,” Arken said.
The campus along with the exhibition will open to public free through October 3, when the renovation will be launched.
According to the blueprint, the whole campus will be developed into a complex called “Yu Jian,” literally meaning “encounter,” as a new attraction on Yuyuan Road.