Home for Boston Ivy

"Home for Boston Ivy" is an artwork related to urban upgrading. It is a group of artwork from the serial works; the creating site is located in shanty towns on the right bank of Yuan River in Changde, Hunan province. At present, the shanty towns are being demolished and will be completely replaced by a brand new modern city in the near future; what it now has here will no longer exist. On the occasion of the demolition, how to preserve the memory of the old city and make it origin memory of the future new city is the basic point of creation for this series of artworks.

Home for Boston Ivy
Design Creator: HU Quanchun(www.5vstudio.com)
Creation Assistant: XIANG Yu
Height: 9m
Material: disused steel
Supervised by: Xiao Bin
Work Production: LIU Jianwen, LIU Jianwu, SUN Deli, CHEN Shuguo, CHEN Lihua
Creation time: April, 2017
Sponsors: ChangdeKonland Urban Development Co., Ltd., Beijing Art Intervenes
Photography: V Studio, Changde Feng Niao, JIANG Yu

Houses being covered by Boston Ivy could be seen everywhere in shanty towns; while presenting a picture of harmonious coexistence of man and nature, it is also the memory of home for habitants of shanty towns. When Boston Ivy attaches to the buildings and grows, it forms the turns and enclosures of the space. Work "Home for Boston Ivy" pulled away the building which the Boston Ivy attached to, and left only the Boston Ivy with twisted roots and gnarled branches in the shape of the building. The size of the artwork is based on the actual size of the old house in shanty towns, and the material is welded disused steel from the demolition site. The whole work shows the state that Boston Ivy wraps the house, forming a transparent and vacant shape.

This artwork will be placed in the future new town. It will remind the residents of the shanty towns of their old memories. Different from other types of installations, “Home for Boston Ivy” is also an urban greening device. Boston Ivy will grow on it again in the future, when Boston Ivy climbs up to “Home for Boston Ivy”, the mark of houses of old shanty towns will be more clear.