When I visited Shanghai two summers ago, I was impressed with how scooters and bicycles were used as real machines, whether carrying massive loads of salvage or delivering precarious towers of flowers. There is a heady dialogue in Toronto about bicycles and greener forms of transportation, but in Shanghai you see how a two-wheeled city actually functions.
I shot a ton of photos with the idea of using them for an art project later on. I now have an exhibition planned for the second half of 2011 at my favourite art clubhouse, the Niagara Artists Centre. The show will mostly be gouache and ink drawings, but I am still making material and technical decisions. I want to convey the motion, the clutter, and the humidity of the street scenes, so I have been leaning towards working on wet papers with soluble inks. It is exciting to be processing a show from scratch, and I will post more reports as the work progresses.
