Shanghai and the surreal: Urban renewal as an inception

Inspired by surrealism as a concept and form of interpretation, the inquiry put forth in this article works to reveal how the dream-like image of contemporary Shanghai channels a deep-rooted propaganda endeavour. Using my observations of contemporary treatments of lilong – with particular focus on the tableaux featured on the outer walls of sealed neighbourhoods, as well as the staged recreation of lane life in a shopping mall – this article proposes a more critical understanding of the urban renewal and approaches deserted lilong neighbourhoods as sites of rejected memories, and subjects of multifaceted visual and material reproductions. Due to the eviction of residents from lilong to make way for a future-facing, homogenous global city with strong Chinese characteristics, what I term as ‘memory struggle’ ensues. As a city growing amid numerous cultural and political forces, shaped by conflict and migration, Shanghai’s urban landscape presents layers of conscious and unconscious, real and unreal; perhaps offering its own form of surrealist artwork. Closer reflection upon various surrealist forms on the surface of today’s Shanghai proposes that, however, the city’s evolutionary mechanism runs contrary to surrealist concepts of unconscious liberation. Rather, the dream is manufactured to (re)create memories and spaces in service of ‘national history’ and ‘modern identity’. Nevertheless, when read through a surrealist lens, the mask of this dream ‘Shanghai’ communicates hidden truths about Chinese dreaming and urban renewal.