News & Events

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The 2022 Shanghai Flower Festival, hosted by the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Greening and City Appearance and the Shanghai Chongming District Government, was held in Dongping National Forest Park this spring. Forest Space Art Season is one of the important events at the main venue of this year's Shanghai Flower Festival. Universities and professional design studios are invited to create public harmonious integration of works of art, highlighting art, natural ecology and the humanities. Fifteen pieces of artwork were selected out of 33 submitted projects. Three of them were honorably designed by the Shanghai Jiao Tong School of Design and implemented at Dongping National Forest Park, namely the “AI Interactive Energy Garden,” “Me in the Cage” and “Interesting Ants.”

All three works profoundly demonstrated the creative concept of being “people-oriented.” Beyond simply creating an environment for art, they put a focus on the public, and considered ways tourists would interact with the work. They are rich in artistic language and are explorations in the field of innovative art design.

AI Interactive Energy Garden

Project Members: ZHANG Yang, WANG Dan, LIU Zhao

Based on the principle of bionics, the design of the project is inspired by the abstract image of the petals of Chongming’s narcissus flower, a regional flower of Chongming. AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology is used to help build a real-time responsive landscape. The Mechanical Flowers opens or closes in response to the identified movements of viewers and thus creates a simulation of nature, enhancing the public’s viewing experience and perception of nature. Meanwhile, the movements of people are also recorded and displayed on the display screen. The design of the art garden features different shapes of petals. Man-made terrain, and more than 30 species of ornamental plants are thus in place. These include Mechanical Flowers made of mirror-finished stainless steel as well as wild flowers, forming a delightful contrast. The project aims to create a sustainable garden featuring the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature.

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Me in the Cage

Project Members: WANG Xinqiao, XIN Luyi

Artistic Director: KONG Fanqiang

The huge bird cage seems to be a mysterious site in the green forest. With the background of birds and flowers, tourists are attracted to stop by and wonder what it is really about. This work invites you to enter the cage, which makes people reflect on the relationship between birds, the environment, and nature. Through “periscopes” of different heights set in the cages, both adults and children can have a glimpse of the migratory birds flying to Chongming Dongtan in the winter.

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Interesting Ants

Project Members: ZHANG Jin, JI Jie, SHENG Beixi

Artistic Director: KONG Fanqiang

The work is located near a campsite. It is not only a forest-themed public art design, but also serves as a most popular equipment for play. Children aged 3-12 can play in an orderly manner under the supervision of their parents. “Interesting Ants” extracts the morphological characteristics of arthropods and abstracts their modeling. The ladders, nets and slides those children are most familiar with give this work the attributes of play equipment. Drilling into the body of the ant, through the eyes of the ant (porthole), we can get a glimpse of the wonders of the forest from the perspective of an ant. The work is also equipped with a dynamic picture book “Little Ant Looking for Friends”, which can be viewed on mobile phones by scanning the QR code to obtain a hybrid experience offline and online.

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