Crimson Architectural Historians and Hugo Corbett are proud to announce the presentation of “Do You Hear the People Sing?” at the 2015 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture in Shenzhen. The Biennale is themed Re-Living the City and will take place in Shenzhen (China) from December 4th 2015 until February 28th 2016.
“Do You Hear the People Sing?” is a contribution to the exhibition ‘Radical Urbanism: The Future of Urban Life Is Informal’ curated by Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumper in the main exhibition venue. With “Do You Hear the People Sing?” Crimson will evoke a worldwide history of decennia in a 24 meter long panoramic drawing that is composed of ten scenes of riots and protests, fused with their spatial environments. It presents an allegorical street scene in which architecture, protesters, instruments of authority, slogans and other paraphernalia tell a story of the street as the place where democracy is viscerally shaped and represented.
This ‘Radical Urbanism’ is what the extremely diverse protests all over the world have in common. Everywhere the status of the street and the issue of ‘ownership’ lies at the centre of the debate. The form of the protests, the ways they are organized, the symbols they deploy to bring their message across, the public spaces they occupy, carry meaning. The protests and also the riots offer temporary images of another story about the city than the official one, and sometimes offer temporary alternative ways to organize, govern or even plan the city. From the circles on Tahrir square back to the barricades of the Amsterdam Nieuwmarkt Riots in 1975, protests and riots are the essence of ‘Radical Urbanism’.