9/18/08

Let's start at the beginning (that's a very good place to start). Here's the Photobucket album with all my China pictures in it.

The exhibition was quite the experience! We had an early breakfast so we could get over to the school to set up early. For the first half of the day, everyone was running around like chickens with their heads cut off! Everyone was stressed. My things weren't even that hard to assemble and I was nearly in tears. Ren Yan wanted to use tinsel as part of our display. Thankfully, I talked her into a very simple, elegant hanging for the masks with white string against a white background. I wasn't terribly happy with the way the masks turned out, especially the ones I made, and I thought that a multi-colored tinsel boa that was formed to say "2008" or make a star would make it gaudy. Ick. This is the way we ended up hanging it:



Along with the partner project, I also wasn't thrilled with my personal project. Maybe I'm just never satisfied.











Once the art was up, though, it was a blast! I was super impressed by everyone's projects! The printing that SUAD did for us seemed pretty nice. The videos were all great. Generally, after the stress of getting it up, spirits lifted and we were able to enjoy ourselves. Before the opening ceremony of our show, we got to meet the president of SUAD (!) and he gave us all a booklet of Olympic poster art (including work done by UO students that was incorrectly as OSU!) and a special edition Confucius coin in a beautiful wooden box. There were a couple of speeches given by professors and one student from each school. Christian spoke for us and Cindy (I don't remember her Chinese name) spoke for SUAD. During the showing, we took lots of photos with the other students. It was a lot of fun, but bittersweet because it was our last moment together, probably forever. Braeden's partner, Song Ge, cried as the bus left.



Fan Ye Ming and I



Ren Yan and I. Do I look uncomfortable?



People checking out my shit!



Steven (unseen) picking up Yu Zhaorun with Ren Yan in front.



Me and Pan Zhi Fei

Post show, we went out to dinner with the SUAD big wigs which included most of us getting a little sloppy. Then we had a mad dash to an overnight train to Shanghai. First sleeper car I've ever been in! Wowzers! We arrived in Shanghai at about 6am, checked into our super swank hotel (not to worry, there are pictures coming), rested all morning and then went to a "garden" that was really just a shopping center. I found a store that I really liked, though, it's called Meters/bonwe. Dinner was interesting. Our last event for the night was a trip up to the 88th floor (viewing deck) of Jinmao tower. That was sweet!



The view from the top of Jinmao tower down to the bottom floor.

Today, we went to the Shanghai Museum (very cool) and the Biennal (even cooler) and an art district (kind of a let down, but there was good pizza!). Tomorrow, we're going to go to some real gardens! I can't believe there are only 4 more days!