While categorizing the perceptive modes of city­sca­pes of high density and exuberant hybridity into four-component systems, on which the new edition of public art projects in Shenzen was based, the curators Hou Hanru and Pi Li wondered how contemporary art as the transcending “fifth system”, the medium of observation and critique, could face and intervene in such a novel reality and be redefined in such an urban environment.

Hanru in another essay also pointed to the increasing relevance of DIY communities and self-organizations, which he considers “the main source of sustainability, the main force in the revival and continued development of today’s post-planning cities.” These phenomena both trigger and fuel his search for alternative institutional models exposing and reflecting the fundamental change in the organizational and operational model in art and its presentation.