Shanghai futures, 2010

[ENG] In July 2010, Anja Kanngieser and Manuela Zechner initiated a series of conversations with young workers, students and interns in Shanghai. At that time the city was in the midst of hosting a World Expo. After the event we wrote our collaborative reflections on questions asked about desires, possible futures, labour conditions, bodies, psyches and mobilities. These conversations were always infused by a backdrop of Shanghai’s LED dreams of becoming a world city of urban sustainability, a thread that runs through all of what follows. This work was carried out as part of the transit labour project. http://www.transitlabour.asia

Aside from doing future archive interviews (not available as audio online, sorry!), we worked with a series of mappings – of the way young creative workers used time, space, of the effects of work on the body and relationships. You can see some of these maps here

And we wrote a text, which constitutes a reflection on our conversations and experiences in Shanghai, published in an abridged version in the transit labour digest no.2. and available in full here.

You can find extracts from two of our future archive interviews here

shanghai expo 2010There’s a video interview with us here: Interview with Anja K and Manuela Z