Shan Shan Sheng’s ‘Open Wall Project‘ is a large-scale glass installation re-interpreting a section of the Great Wall for the 2009 Venice Biennale.
Sheng’s Open Wall installation captures an interval of China’s heritage, translating this historic structure as a temporary zone of glass architecture.
The sculpture which is meant to be a reconstruct of the Great Wall of China, indicates moments of transparency and opacity, marking this critical intersection of Chinese and western culture.
Located along Venice’s historic Grand Canal, the temporary pavilion is made up of 2,200 stacked glass bricks, each brick represents the number of years which it took to build the great wall. The glass blocks become a kind of cultural currency which can be moved, redistributed, subtracted and added duration of the installation, expressing the transitory process of globalization.
Each brick is engraved with a date and its corresponding Chinese lunar year. The dates are meant to signify historical moments which have been witnessed by the Great Wall. 564 BC was the year the Great Wall’s construction began and 1254 AD was the birth year of Marco Polo, China’s link to Venice.
The Great Wall was built in different dynastic intervals, from 564 BC to 1644. The Great Wall measures 4000 miles (6400km). It is the only man-made architecture structure viewable from space. Each brick of the Great Wall, if laid out lengthwise, would span the globe.
Shan Shan Sheng was born in Shanghai, China and grew up surviving the cultural revolution. In 1982 she went to the United States to pursue her academic and artistic interests, and has since had over twenty one-woman shows in Europe, Asia and America. She now lives and works in San Francisco.
