Thanks to Shanghai Eye: Lisa Zhou, General Manager of Shanghai E Arts Festival, and a project manager for Shanghai Cultural Development Foundation, talked about the coming developments for the arts in China’s commercial capital, Shanghai, over this year and into 2010 as the city makes preparations for the World Expo. E Arts is held in the Autumn in Shanghai, and has had two editions to date. In the last two editions, hundreds of artists from around the globe participated, in an innovative programme held across the city in parks, shopping malls and other public spaces. Visitors annually number in the hundreds of thousands. A Chinese citizen, Lisa Zhou graduated with a masters degree from Coventry University in Fine Arts.

Q: Could you give some background to the Shanghai Cultural Development Foundation, E Arts and the Chinese government’s backing of these initiatives?

LZ: The Publicity Department of Shanghai (Propaganda Bureau) is our biggest boss, to enhance cultural responsibility and echo cultural developments in Beijing. Shanghai is a melting pot, with the development of technology there is a good matchmaking role with Shanghai, the city has a large population, with a good education, and the city has many good public spaces. The Cultural Foundation, Pudong area, all contributed funds (to the E Arts festival 2008). The Cultural Foundation has a 20 year history, and funds hundreds of projects a year. Over the last 5-6 years this has developed in all kinds of directions, and have funded everything from Operas to fine arts events. The Cultural Foundation has 2 seasons per year to recruit proposals. Annually the Foundation has a RMB 150 million budget (USD $25 million). The Foundation also now also assists on setting up commercial events, such as the recent productions of the Lion King and Mama Mia. It is very effective. This is a part of very smart cultural policy by the government, it is a good mechanism that is allowing new events to create a new face for Shanghai City.

Q: What are your long term plans for the E Arts festival in Shanghai? And what other events or festivals have inspired you, or could you draw comparisons with?

LZ: In the first year (2007) Shanghai E Arts Festival was held in 5 districts, the second year (2008) in 3 districts. This year (2009) we will focus on one area around the Oriental Pearl Tower and the Bund. In 2007 we estimated around 340,000 visitors, we are still calculating for 2008. In 2009, we expect large numbers, the Oriental Pearl Tower alone receives 3.6 million visitors a year, from all walks of life, foreign and domestic. For 2010 we will enter into discussions with the World Expo organizers. The World Expo expects around 700,000 visitors a day for 6 months. Also, there will be about 20,000 events during this period. Who can curate all this? E Arts role is under discussion, we are interested in the ‘Young Expo’ which will be in the most technologically advanced part of the site. We may even change the date for E Arts in 2010.

After 2010 we plan to have a quieter, more research based educational event on ‘odd’ years, such as 2011, and then have major shows on ‘even’ years, such as 2012. In 2008, for E Arts, our budget was RMB 12 million (USD 2 million). This did not include site fees, and other costs, such as building the 110 room dormitory plus the exhibition and art center for artists in residence, which was funded by a district government initiative. For 2009 so far we have only raised about a third of this amount, due to government pressures following the economic crisis, their funds must be more dedicated to construction projects. But we have heard some museums have cut their budgets, or even cancelled events, so after Chinese New Year we will be approaching other sponsors, consulates, and people like airlines for instance, to help cover the costs of flying in invited foreign artists for instance.

As to our model for E Arts, we are very much inspired by the Austrian event, Art Electronic held in Linz, Austria. We’re not just curating work, we are also the workers, dealing with every detail, from talking to officials, artists, media…there are very different rules for electronic art when compared to contemporary or traditional art.

It is difficult to make all contemporary art world circles accept new media art. We decided on the older term Electronic Art, rather than cyber art, new media art, etc, because we felt all these latest developments were contained in the Electronic art category. As in Linz, who have a very good system in place, we wish to develop mechanisms like their futurelab and museum, and a better communication system. Partly there is also a lack of (electronic) artists in China, recently many universities have set up new media departments, but their focus is computer games and animation. Firstly we need a more open attitude, and Shanghai is a very open city. We have had positive and negative feedback, so we need to communicate better, ourselves and the artists, and build an academic system. We keep our information transparent and we need to be brave to do new things for a new future.

New technology arts also have use in applications, we want to use of artists works to make prototypes for some kind of services that can be used in the city.

In 2009 we will invite a host of foreign artists, including a large Belgian new media artist contingent who will hold a show in Shanghai talking about virtual reality. The show will create another, more poetic reality, against the more obvious uses of visual reality for entertainment. Local artists such as Aaajiao, Gu Chen and Feng Menbo will also contribute, works such as large outdoor installations. The work will range from entertaining to serious, even discussing electronic art’s heritage from the 1900s. Last year Zhang Peili’s students at the Central Academy of Fine Arts also showed their works in a large scale setting. We hope they learned a lot from that experience. We need to practice, and team work is key. In 2009 the effect will be bigger but cost less, we are saving every penny, and are exploring ways for new media artists to survive.