This week we documented artist Donshi’s augmented reality exhibition, #augmentedchinatown, which is on for two weeks as part of the Chinese Arts Now Festival 2019. Featured in TimeOut Magazine, his amazing exhibition takes the form of a tour through Chinatown with augmented reality digital sculptures revealed through the app he created for this exhibit. 

The works explore the ideas of identity, cultural symbolism, myth and the layered histories of the Chinese communities and the diaspora. 

Donshi: “Join me on a guided tour as we meander and drift through the present Chinatown in Soho London. The exploration of a hidden world that straddles between the digital and the real. Combining video installation and digital sculptures in the form of augmented reality in contrast with the real world in Chinatown. The works when pieced together form an alternative landscape that explores the ideas of identity, cultural symbolism, myth and the layered histories of the Chinese communities and the diaspora.

The journey will take us through each of the digital installations in a progressive narrative from the early beginnings of the creation myth in Chinese mythology to present day situations. I aim to bring new light to these stories and the links to other cultures that would hopefully generate new strands of thought and generate an interesting discussion. The goal is it to break free from the predictable everyday lives, to be confronted by situations and the possibility to generate new perspectives.

The tour will be accessible via the IOS app that will be developed specifically for the exhibition to enable the observer to view the augmented reality.”