For the book launch of “Speculative Grounds – Positions on Beijing’s Transformation” in Zurich, we invite you to take a walk-through Greater Beijing’s urban transformation. We will give glimpses into the works developed by an interdisciplinary group of artists, researchers, architects, and many others within the research project Beijing22 that was initiated by the curators Antonie Angerer, Anna-Viktoria Eschbach and photographer Jannis Schulze.

The response of Beijing’s committee “No Snow, No Problem” to wondering journalists on how the Winter Olympics of Beijing would be able to take place in such a snow scarce place, marked the starting point for the project, choosing 2022 as a timeframe to investigate the urban changes happening until and because of the Winter Olympics. The proclamation of making the impossible possible was a glimpse into the drastic transformation Greater Beijing was and is experiencing. The lecture will travel to future cities, searching for green mushrooms, while hearing from different social worlds about their dreams, their experiences and the reality of living sandwiched between what has already been lost and the yet to come.

Next to book launch the zine “Beijing Mushroom” (2022) by Yu Gong, Zhangbolong Liu and Yu-Cheng Hsiao that was published in collaboration between Beijing22 and Standard Stoppage will be available. A zine that is looking at the green mushrooms that fulfil an obsession about the mysterious urban landscape of Beijing.

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