Silhouette
Silhouette
Silhouette was a site-specific night performance created in the Tilanqiao district of Shanghai, an area whose streets hold a layered and complex history dating back to the Second World War. Between 2017 and 2021, the neighbourhood underwent rapid and unexpected transformation as urban redevelopment reshaped the area.
In response to these changes, Silhouette invited audiences on a walking journey through streets within a three-kilometre radius of Tilanqiao. Along the route, they encountered live physical movement, spoken excerpts from Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, and a solo violin performance responding to the atmosphere of the surrounding environment. These fragments of text, sound, and movement created a poetic dialogue with the district itself.
Silhouette was a site-specific night performance created in the Tilanqiao district of Shanghai, an area whose streets hold a layered and complex history dating back to the Second World War. Between 2017 and 2021, the neighbourhood underwent rapid and unexpected transformation as urban redevelopment reshaped the area.
In response to these changes, Silhouette invited audiences on a walking journey through streets within a three-kilometre radius of Tilanqiao. Along the route, they encountered live physical movement, spoken excerpts from Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, and a solo violin performance responding to the atmosphere of the surrounding environment. These fragments of text, sound, and movement created a poetic dialogue with the district itself.
The performance concluded with a projection of documentary footage filmed in 2017, when the neighbourhood was still lively and filled with residents. When the show took place in 2021, most shops had been sealed behind cement walls and only one grocery store remained open. Its owner, one of the last original residents, became an unexpected witness to the performance.
In that moment, audience and resident shared a quiet reflection on memory, displacement, and the shifting identity of a city. Silhouette asked a simple but urgent question: what kind of city image emerges when urban space is constantly rewritten by development?
You can see an edited recording for a later developed video installation here.
The performance concluded with a projection of documentary footage filmed in 2017, when the neighbourhood was still lively and filled with residents. When the show took place in 2021, most shops had been sealed behind cement walls and only one grocery store remained open. Its owner, one of the last original residents, became an unexpected witness to the performance.
In that moment, audience and resident shared a quiet reflection on memory, displacement, and the shifting identity of a city. Silhouette asked a simple but urgent question: what kind of city image emerges when urban space is constantly rewritten by development?
You can see an edited recording for a later developed video installation here.
Dircted and produced by Inini Xinyi Yin
Featured artists
Chen Jingyuan, 弘野司, Kugi, M U, Shuxuan, 杨杨 and 31
Dircted and produced by Inini Xinyi Yin
Featured artists
Chen Jingyuan, 弘野司, Kugi, M U, Shuxuan, 杨杨 and 31