This morning, the municipal government held a press conference for the 2025 Shanghai Urban Space Art Season. Preparations for the 2025 Shanghai Urban Space Art Season were introduced, and information was shared on the digital transformation of national land space governance. Officials attended the press conference and answered questions.

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I. The Concept and Practice of the Shanghai Urban Space Art Season

The Shanghai Urban Space Art Season is a collaborative project held biennially since 2015, with five successful editions to date. Past editions have adhered to the core philosophy of «revitalizing the city through culture and building the city through art.» Through key achievements such as «urban renewal» and the «15-minute community life circle,» as well as exemplary practical cases like the Xuhui West Bund and Yangpu Riverside, the event has vividly demonstrated Shanghai’s active exploration of urban transformation and quality enhancement, providing a lively narrative for building a «people’s city» and achieving higher-quality development.

Currently, Shanghai is accelerating the construction of a globally influential hub for technological innovation. Empowering megacity spatial governance with artificial intelligence is an innovative measure to proactively adapt to technological iterations. On December 13 last year, the «Quantum City Spacetime Innovation Base» was unveiled on Fuxing Island, steadily advancing toward the goal of building a «digital intelligence island, design art island, and people’s city island.»

Against this backdrop, this year’s Shanghai Urban Space Art Season has chosen «Quantum City · Reviving the Future» as its theme, with the main exhibition area located on Fuxing Island. It aims to explore new paradigms of «AI + spatial governance» through the deep integration of technology, art, and space, leading the city toward a future with greater technological sophistication and aesthetic quality.

II. Event Arrangements for This Edition of the Shanghai Urban Space Art Season

The 2025 Shanghai Urban Space Art Season will open on September 30 and close on December 13. This edition is jointly organized by multiple municipal bureaus and the Yangpu District People’s Government. Relying on a «1+16» exhibition area model, it will create an urban space art «carnival» with both professional characteristics and public participation.

The «1» refers to one main exhibition area located in the Fuxing Island Shipyard Park area. Through spatial creation, artistic implantation, technological displays, and performances, it will highlight four key features: first, interpreting the «Quantum City» by applying AI technology to showcase the future vision of smart governance; second, creating distinctive spaces by empowering urban renewal with artistic design on the foundation of retaining industrial cyber aesthetics, developing featured scenes such as Revival Square, Revival Axis, and Waterfront Market; third, introducing diverse activities by collaborating with well-known IPs like the Shanghai Tourism Festival, Citizen Culture Festival, the Second International Light Festival, and Bilibili to promote the integration of culture, tourism, commerce, sports, and exhibitions; fourth, accumulating creative outcomes by gathering domestic and international designers and artists for on-site creations, turning the exhibition area into a leisure destination for citizens and a new urban landmark.

Additionally, this edition of the Space Art Season has arranged 16 sub-venues, including the Xuhui Riverside Technology Innovation Block, Pudong Zhangjiang’s «Ji Art Space,» and Jinshan Caojing Town’s Digital Nomad Village. These cover various types such as tech innovation blocks, smart communities, digital venues, and Jiangnan-style rural landscapes, comprehensively showcasing the innovative practical achievements of spatial art in urban development from different perspectives.

The 2025 Shanghai Urban Space Art Season is not only a «mutual enhancement» of technology and art but also a «two-way pursuit» between the city and the future. Everyone is invited to actively participate and experience the vitality and charm of Shanghai’s urban space art!

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In the process of advancing Chinese-style modernization in the new era, great importance is placed on empowering development and driving transformation through digitalization. In 2023, it was proposed at the National Ecological Environment Protection Conference to «build a digital governance system for a Beautiful China and create a green and smart digital ecological civilization.» The recently held Central Urban Work Conference further clarified that a modern people’s city should be «innovative, livable, beautiful, resilient, civilized, and smart.»

The Ministry of Natural Resources is entrusted with two unified responsibilities: uniformly exercising the ownership of all natural resource assets owned by the whole people, and uniformly exercising control over the use of all national land space and ecological protection and restoration. Over the years, leveraging comprehensive basic surveying, mapping, and monitoring capabilities covering «land, sea, air, and space,» the Ministry has used digital means to establish multiple platforms and information systems

Shanghai Urban Space Art Season

The Shanghai Urban Space Art Season is a biennial public art and urban planning exhibition launched in 2015. It aims to improve urban life and public spaces by transforming different districts of the city into large-scale, temporary art and architecture showcases. Each edition features installations, forums, and interventions that explore the relationship between art, the city, and its inhabitants.

Xuhui West Bund

The Xuhui West Bund is a modern cultural and recreational waterfront district in Shanghai, developed along the Huangpu River on the site of former industrial facilities and cargo ports. Its history is rooted in the city’s industrial past, but it has been transformed since the 2010s into a vibrant area known for its art museums, galleries, and public parks.

Yangpu Riverside

The Yangpu Riverside in Shanghai is a revitalized industrial waterfront that was historically home to China’s earliest modern industries. Once lined with factories and warehouses, the area has been transformed into a vast public park, preserving its industrial heritage through the adaptive reuse of old structures. It now serves as a popular recreational space, offering greenways, art installations, and panoramic views of the Huangpu River.

Fuxing Island

Fuxing Island is a small artificial island located in the Yangpu District of Shanghai, China, formed by dredging the Huangpu River in the early 20th century. It is historically significant as the site of a major shipyard and for its industrial heritage, though it is now being redeveloped into a new public waterfront space.

Quantum City Spacetime Innovation Base

The Quantum City Spacetime Innovation Base is a conceptual, futuristic research and development hub designed to pioneer breakthroughs in quantum computing and spacetime physics. Its history is rooted in 21st-century theoretical proposals, envisioning a self-sustaining facility where scientists could experimentally manipulate quantum states and gravitational fields. The project symbolizes humanity’s ambition to master the fundamental forces of the universe.

Fuxing Island Shipyard Park

Fuxing Island Shipyard Park is a public park in Shanghai, China, created on the site of a historic shipyard that dates back to the 1930s. It preserves and repurposes industrial relics, such as cranes and docks, transforming them into cultural landmarks and green spaces that blend the city’s maritime heritage with modern urban recreation.

Xuhui Riverside Technology Innovation Block

The Xuhui Riverside Technology Innovation Block is a modern development zone in Shanghai, established on the site of former industrial docks and factories along the Huangpu River. It has been transformed into a hub for tech companies, startups, and research institutions, symbolizing the city’s shift from industrial manufacturing to a innovation-driven economy.

Pudong Zhangjiang’s Ji Art Space

Ji Art Space is a contemporary art museum located in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang High-Tech Park, which opened in 2018. It was established as a cultural landmark to bring world-class art and exhibitions to the city’s prominent technology and innovation hub. The space is dedicated to showcasing modern and contemporary art, often featuring works by both established and emerging Chinese and international artists.