I am very pleased to announce our next exhibition at Watermans, Shanghai Archeology, which opens on Wednesday 21st March.

Shanzhai Archeology presents an extraordinary collection of mobile phones from the technological interbreeding Made in China. These are hybrid products developed at an incredible speed merging piracy, reverse engineering, unique creativity and self-taught skills.

Exhibition launch: Wednesday 21 March, 6.30-8.30pm

Join the artists in conversation with Brendan Cormier, Lead Curator of 20th and 21st Century Design for the Shekou Project, Victoria and Albert Museum, followed by drinks. 
Free, but please book your space as numbers are limited: https://www.watermans.org.uk/events/shanzhai-archeology-free-launch-event/

A Buddha Phone, becomes a virtual altar by pressing a special key. The “smallest in the world” or Prisoner Phone is made of 99% plastic and is barely detectable by the authorities. There’s the Taser Phone, marketed as a self-defence weapon, or the Sound System Phone, catering for China’s pensioners as it can broadcast loud sound outdoors, being heard above the din of the public dances they love. It also comes with several gigabytes of old-fashioned communist songs that Chinese pensioners are particularly keen on. Other curious devices include strawberry or car-shaped phones, devices with in-built electric razors, lighters, power banks, video projectors and other impressive features.  

A profitable business produced by small companies, shanzhai mainly happens out of Western sight, due to regulations that forbid most of these hybrid products to circulate legally across borders. Nevertheless, shanzhai devices fulfil a bespoke need or desire for hundreds of thousands of consumers in countries around the world, not just in China.

At a time when shanzhai might be under threat – following the Chinese government’s decision to clean up the country of its counterfeiter reputation – this project casts a critical eye at the results of unfettered technological innovation, through the relatively unknown history of the shanzhai.

Positioning this project at the crossroads between art and anthropology, the artists explore the cultural value of shanzhai and the radical otherness on its creative process; an open manufacturing model resulting in singular design solutions outside streamlined market forces and global innovation myths.

More information about the exhibition:
https://www.watermans.org.uk/events/shanzhai-archeology/
http://disnovation.org/shanzhai.php

Best wishes

Irini