Luo Songsong

    songsongluo@126.com

    IN 2013, Xi Jinping, president of China, invited his countrymen to dare to dream and to work hard to contribute to the revitalization of the nation. Since then, the term Chinese dream has become one of the most frequently used phrases in the media.

    Paula Muhr, a young German artist, tries to explore ways in which such an abstract concept can be translated into individual dreams and value systems with a set of multimedia installations.

    The work began with interviews with 11 Chinese people of different ages, professions and social statuses, including cleaners, security guards, entrepreneurs and designers, on their own interpretations of the ideal.

    The interviewees expressed different expectations towards the future, either ambitious or surprisingly peaceful. For example, Muhr was impressed by a restaurant owner whose dream is to enjoy life in a slow and sophisticated way like appreciating a cup of tea.

    To uncover their inner emotions, the artist presented mute fragments from the filmed interviews and juxtaposed them with videos and sound recordings she made during long walks in China’s metropolitan cities.

    In Hong Kong and Shanghai, she captured the reflections of neon lights on the water surface of Victoria Bay and Pudong River, respectively, and projected the images on a large screen to represent the rapid development of the past decades.

    “It is a symbol of powerful China as the world’s second-largest economy. However, the ‘Chinese dream’ is also mirrored by the colorful lives of common people,” she said.

    During her two-month stay as a guest artist at Shenzhen Fine Art Institute, she visited lots of parks and was surprised to find the explosion of life at night. The noises she recorded were employed as background audio at the exhibition.

    While referencing the American dream — which generally means the pursuit of a better life, success and prosperity — she said that the Chinese dream offers a new interpretation of those age-old ideals by closely interlinking the country’s development with the individual happiness of its people.

    “My Chinese dream is, therefore, the result of multiple and mutually intertwined processes of translation, interpretation or even misinterpretation; the synthesis of which is a very subjective image of contemporary China,” she said.

    Time: 10 a.m.-5 p.m., until Dec. 28, closed Mondays

    Venue: Shenzhen Fine Art Institute, 36 Jinhu Road 1, Yinhu, Luohu District

    Buses: 69 (Shenzhen Fine Art Institute Stop), 4, 5, 7, 201, 218, 222, 301, 360, 315 (Yinhu Bus Station Stop)