Opening on Thursday 4 October, 5-7pm, Kluuvi Gallery

The material for the exhibition derives from Jaakko Karhunen’s stay at DCA residency center in Shanghai.

Lao Baixing is the fictional author of this exhibition, as if the original actions in the city were made by an imaginary character. It is not a proper name, in Chinese “lao baixing” means the commoners, hoi polloi, the many or the ordinary people. As is customary in a melodrama, the hero of the story will determine its destiny for him/herself – here the rabble class is imagined as the subject of its own destiny.

Jaakko Karhunen’s residency at the DCA residency centre in Shanghai in Autumn 2011 was realised in the frame of the Urban Studies residency exchange programme which was organised and run by HIAP between Helsinki and Shanghai in 2010–2011.