On the night ...

An evening celebrating Chinese New Year with a contemporary, urban twist. Curated by Jen Wu, the evening re-examined luck, chance and the traditions of both East and West through China's emerging electronic avant-garde.

Sculpture Unit - Made in Shanghai - Build Your Own City!
By adding and manipulating the simple modular 'Sculpture Unit' components you could assemble your own sculptural skyline. Designed by artist Anthony Gross and manufactured by specialist import/export companies in Shanghai and Ningbo. Accompanying the sculpture was the premier showing of a film by Gross made in a Shanghai recycling centre where labourers separate by hand the materials brought in on backs of bicycles. 

Local Listening
Specially commissioned for 'Year of the Ox', Beijing-based sound artist Yan Jun presented a new installation composed of 40 pieces of field recordings. Using headphones hung at various heights you could construct your own sonic and physical vistas.

Music for Museums by Support Structure / Celine Condorelli
'Music for Museums' played in several areas of the V&A. Featuring Beijing-based musicians 718, Yan Jun and Zafka, as well as UK-based musician Isambard Khroustaliov and duo ISAN, each of the tracks was developed for a specific functional area within gallery and museum spaces.

'History of Chemistry Vol. I' (2004, 30 min, looped) and 'History of Chemistry Vol. II, Excessively restrained mountaineering enthusiasts' (2006, 96 min) by Lu Chunsheng
These two films by Lu Chunsheng depicted Shanghai (Vol. I) and London (Vol. II) as wild pre- and post-industrial landscapes populated by sailors and gentlemen "lost or detached from reality, wandering around like somnambulant sleep-walkers."

I Ching readings
You could have your fortune told using readings from the I Ching or ‘Book of Changes’, that describes an ancient system of cosmology used to identify order in random events.

'Quiet Place' by David Blamey and Craig Richards
This live 'deep listening' improvisation by artist David Blamey and Fabric resident Craig Richards blurred the boundary between art and a DJ experience.

'Tetragrammaton's Home in the Abyss: Reduced to 6' by Tai Shani
With over 20 performers, this live installation explored the cosmology of chance amidst the universe's multiple realities. You could watch the performance from outside the performance space and listen to it through headphones.

'Sarah Baker and the Ominous Ox' by Andy Hsu & Sarah Baker
The artist Sarah Baker and the fortune-telling ox, made by Andy Hsu, wandered around the ground floor of the museum, issuing mysterious messages of personalised destiny out of its third eye. 

Fortune Boats
You could create your own New Year fortune boat with product designer and HSBC Designer in Residence Lao Jianhua.

Crafted in Food
You could explore Chinese New Year traditions of food sculpture with product designer and HSBC Designer in Residence Lao Jianhua and have your masterpiece captured on camera.

Shanghai World Expo Display Tour
V&A curator Abraham Thomas explored the history of Expos through a journey examining key moments of design history such as the 1851 Great Exhibition, the 1951 Festival of Britain and ending with a sneak preview of the plans for the Shanghai World Expo in 2010.