The sleepless theatre

Through a curatorial approach, Jiang Jiehong invites contemporary artists to focus on a 100-year-old building in Shanghai, now the Wu Changshuo Art Museum (WAM), which survived the turbulence of wars, political movements of the past century and the dramatic urban development in post-Mao China. Situated amongst the forest of the modernized skyscrapers in Shanghai’s CBD Lujiazui, this heritage house stays in its traditional style, contributing to a surrealistic urban landscape. With the artistic responses in various forms commissioned for the site-specific exhibition staged at WAM, this article re-examines the evolution of the building, the neighbourhood and the place, and critically reflects the revolutionary urban transformation in the past century and the societal and cultural changes in Shanghai.