Coming on the heels of “Adrift”, a group exhibition (curated by Chen Li, Qu Chang, and Zeng Wenqi) dealing with the topic of “migration,” OCAT Shenzhen will present a large group exhibition “Digging a Hole in China”, curated by Venus Lau, the new artistic director at the institution. A critic and curator long active in Beijing, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong, Lau was awarded the Jury’s Pick at the Chinese Contemporary Art Award (CCAA) for critics in 2011. As a consulting curator for Beijing’s UCCA (Ullens Center for Contemporary Art), she led the programming for the “Secret Timezones Trilogy”, presenting solo projects by the Singapore artist Ming Wong, the Thai artist Korakrit Arunanondchai, and the Korean artist Haegue Yang.

The upcoming exhibition “Digging a Hole in China” will present works by Cao Fei, Colin Siyuan Chinnery, Li Jinghu, Lin Yilin, Liu Chuang, Liu Wei, Wang Jianwei, Xu Qu, Xu Tan, Zhang Liaoyuan, Zheng Guogu, Zhuang Hui. Through presenting works that bear a connection to land within the context of contemporary art in China, the exhibition “attempts to expose and analyze the discrepancies between this genre of work and ‘conventional’ land art understood in the Western-centric art historical context, thereby probing the potential of ‘land’—as a cultural and political concept—in artistic practice.”

In the coming year, OCAT Shenzhen will present “Summer Triangle” (July 16), also curated by Venus Lau; with works by three artists with varied cultural backgrounds—Jon Rafman, Adrian Wong, and Lantian Xie—the exhibition seeks to engage “in a multisensory exploration of cultural exchange that transcends conventional geopolitical concepts.” Later in the year, OCAT Shenzhen will also present a solo exhibition by Jiang Zhi (October 29), while in December, the ongoing OCAT Shenzhen project “OCAT Performances” will showcase “Act” with Li Ran and Tao Hui. Finally, in early 2017, OCAT Shenzhen will present Simon Denny’s first solo exhibition in Mainland China. Denny, a New Zealand-born and Berlin-based artist who represented New Zealand at the 2015 Venice Biennale, will explore “material forms of technology and information against the backdrop of Shenzhen’s technological development and imagination for the future”.