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2025

Space for Attention
注視距離

Curator: Haotian Zhang
Exhibitors: BAAS Year 4 students from 2025 fall semester

Venue: 3/F, King World, Dongmen Main Street, Shenzhen
深圳東門老街金世界百貨三樓

Exhibition introduction:

Continuing the exploration from the fall 2024 fourth-year studio, this exhibition investigates the attention economy in Dongmen, Shenzhen, and its reshaping of urban space.   Modern cities accumulate spectacles, giving rise to the new urban experience of flânerie: people wander through the veins of the city as spectators, immersing themselves at the random intersections of space and events. Dongmen, the most historic commercial district in Shenzhen, has also thrived on a visual economy. Signs, advertisements, lightboxes, peddling, hawking, busking... These tools captured the attention of flâneurs and created the unique sensory stimulation of Dongmen Main Street. Since the end of 2023, live performances began to occupy the main street, bringing controversies yet opportunities. Such performances gathered popularity both online and offline: as they exposed the site to the city through digital portals, the local flocking crowds also reshaped the public space. In response to this, a fourth-year design studio at the University of Hong Kong reflected on the impact of this phenomenon on the city and explored ways to harness this energy and invigorate existing businesses. In addition to studio coursework, the exhibition also features ten spatial installations themed around viewing. Each installation defines a specific visual relationship: focusing, surrounding, peeking, blind-sighting, periscoping... In Dongmen Main Street, viewing and being viewed are interchangeable, just as visitors who step onto these viewing devices become the scenery for others.

All works © HKU Department of Architecture. All Rights Reserved.

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