Ji Shi, AIA

Curatorial, In Progress, Shenzhen, 2022

Plastic, wrote Roland Barthes in Mythologies, is “the first magical substance that consents to be prosaic.” Indeed, plastics have been hugely controversial since they were invented. The substance was derived from ancient fossils, yet pops up in everyday lives; It is composed of stable elements, yet grows into a diverse range of forms. It quickly became the darling of the capitalist market, yet was oppressed due to its negative impacts on the environment.

People have been mass producing plastics since the 1950s, and the affordability and plasticity of the substance has dramatically changed our lives from all aspects. The versatile material has been used in almost every object, ranging from plastic bags to computer parts, from domestic to industrial applications. It changes us so thoroughly that we fail to recognize its existence. Meanwhile, plastic has gone into our bodies: the diverse types of plastic surgeries and the applications of polymer materials in the medical field have all strengthened the dependence of our body on plastics. The boundary between plastic as an object to ourselves has been dissolved, and the question now is how are we supposed to understand it?

“Plastic Up!” exhibition showcases a tentative discussion on the above question. In the past century, the cultural image posted by the use of plastics has been as versatile and contradicting as the very substance itself. Every shining moment of plastics in history reflects the signature of the era, and plastic itself has transformed to a tool for critique and commentary. The plastic is seen to be prosaic, yet its cultural implications are unique and strong; The substance itself is quiet, yet the time speaks up lound. We see “Plastic Up” as a message to the future. For the 30s, plastic represented a world of tomorrow that nobody knows; For the 60s, it meant a trendy lifestyle that everybody enjoys; For the 90s, it exposed an imminent environmental apocalypse that needed immediate actions. So, what is “Plastic Up” and what does it mean to us now? Following the above questions, the exhibition invites artists and designers from multiple fields, and asks them to present what they believe to be “Plastic Up”. The exhibition documents these thoughts from 3 aspects, namely “Body”, “Technology”, and “Culture”, and presents them to the audience.

Project Information:
Category: Curatorial, Exhibition
Curator: Ji Shi, You Wu, Zhonghui Zhang
Consultant: PlasticFreeChina
Venue: KONG Lab, Shenzhen
Year: 2022

Exhibition, Completed, Shanghai, 2020

Leftover refers to anything that is remaining after the rest has been used or consumed, and is mostly used to describe food. In this exhibition, the leftovers refer to the redundancy of Ji Shi's working objects from everyday design practice. The exhibition recycles from them and reveals the unseen side of the design.

These leftovers were originally produced by Ji Shi while he was finishing his graduate thesis at Princeton University. The objects cover a wide range of categories spanning malfunctioned prototypes, beta versions of programs, hidden layers in the design documents. They were listed as irrelevant and obsolete. However, these objects are not inoperable. The leftovers were not theoretically invented for ideal conditions. Instead, they were technically created for real situations. The artist also uses the leftovers as a metaphor for our daily lives which are immersed in all kinds of unused objects, and promotes a lifestyle of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

The exhibition was curated by Shanghai-based architect Murong Xia 'Samoon', and was held by mür mür, an art initiative started by Samoon.

Project Information:
Category: Exhibition, Installation
Curator: Murong Xia 'Samoon'
Executive Designer: YutongHou, Xinyan Zhou
Venue: mür mür Gallery Space, Shanghai
Year: 2020

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Architecture, Proposal, Los Angeles, 2020

The cultural identity of L.A. has been thriving due to a constant influx of heterogeneous elements. The city's cultural dimension is as sprawling as its spatial growth. The design, titled Clip-Clip, reflects such idea – It is not just a streetlight, but a living organism, like Ed Ruscha’s cactus, that grows and adapts to the influx of information and elements.

Clip-Clip refers to the at-ease installation process of adding, attaching and updating new elements to the streetlight without jeopardizing its formal continuity. The light pole has its base form from industrial steel extrusion. Its rounded profile and vibrant color palettes bring a liveness to the cityscape and echoes the rich legacy of Los Angeles’ aesthetics.

The design of the streetlight is tested against a variety urban vignettes from the city, Abbot Kinney, Echo park, Sunset Blvd, and etc. The scenes are pedestrian-oriented views that focus on a series of 'prosaic' cultural icons. These vignettes as well as many other views that we aren’t able to render consist of the very sensory collective experience of the city. They operate in our daily life as icon, albeit a muted one.

Therefore, we propose Clip-Clip to the city of L.A. This proposal is not merely a solution with a fixed form of a perfect streetlight for the city, but rather as a playful process that will anticipate, adapt and absorb the technological changes and cultural occurances that are yet-to-come.

Project Information:
Category: Architecture, Landscape
Collaborator: You Wu
Award: Honorable Mentions, L.A. Lights the Way
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Year: 2020

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Project Information:
Category: Exhibition, Curatorial
Co-Curators: Ji Shi, You Wu, Zhonghui Zhu
Venue: KONG Lab, Shengzhen
Year: 2022

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Project Information:
Category: Exhibition, Curatorial
Co-Curators: Ji Shi, You Wu, Zhonghui Zhu
Venue: KONG Lab, Shengzhen
Year: 2022

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Project Information:
Category: Exhibition, Curatorial
Co-Curators: Ji Shi, You Wu, Zhonghui Zhu
Venue: KONG Lab, Shengzhen
Year: 2022

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Project Information:
Category: Exhibition, Curatorial
Co-Curators: Ji Shi, You Wu, Zhonghui Zhu
Venue: KONG Lab, Shengzhen
Year: 2022

Installation, Built, Shanghai, 2019

This project is a set of CNC furniture, and is commissioned by the Power Station of Art (PSA). PSA held a special exhibition to celebrate the 5th anniversary of its renowned curatorial project, the Emerging Curators Project (ECP). PSA asked Ji Shi, the selected curator of the 2017 ECP program, to design a set of furniture for the exhibition. The set of furniture is made with plywood, with mortise and tenon joint. The design is based on primitive geometries, and uses a combination of squares and circles to create a sense of playfulness. The furniture set was manufactured by opendesk.

Project Information:
Category: Installation, Interior
Manufacturer: Opendesk
Client: Power Station of Art (PSA)
Location: Shanghai, CA
Year: 2018

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Project Information:
Category: Exhibition, Curatorial
Co-Curators: Ji Shi, You Wu, Zhonghui Zhu
Venue: KONG Lab, Shengzhen
Year: 2022

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Project Information:
Category: Exhibition, Curatorial
Co-Curators: Ji Shi, You Wu, Zhonghui Zhu
Venue: KONG Lab, Shengzhen
Year: 2022

Architecture, Proposal, Rancho Palos Verdes, 2019

This proposal, named Stacking, was submitted to Palos Verdes Art Center (PVAC) for their building envelope rennovation design competition. The proposal envisions a virtual re-arrange of geometrical components of the existing built environment. The existing building elevation shows an interesting composition of geometries in multiple shapes, colors, and orientations. The newly designed building wrap is based on such interesting conditions and proposed a stacking scene which imagines all objects falling and stacking at the ground level. The newly designed building wrap makes the building more playful which will attract more people. Also, the design examines contemporary art through the eyes of digital media. The falling objects can also be seen as coordinates, urls, links, hashtags, etc. The design aims to defamiliarize the building entrance and create a sense of digital world to public crowds.

Project Information:
Category: Architecture, Landscape
Collaborator: You Wu
Award: Honorable Mentions, L.A. Lights the Way
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Year: 2020

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Project Information:
Category: Exhibition, Curatorial
Co-Curators: Ji Shi, You Wu, Zhonghui Zhu
Venue: KONG Lab, Shengzhen
Year: 2022

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Project Information:
Category: Exhibition, Curatorial
Co-Curators: Ji Shi, You Wu, Zhonghui Zhu
Venue: KONG Lab, Shengzhen
Year: 2022

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Project Information:
Category: Exhibition, Curatorial
Co-Curators: Ji Shi, You Wu, Zhonghui Zhu
Venue: KONG Lab, Shengzhen
Year: 2022

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Project Information:
Category: Exhibition, Curatorial
Co-Curators: Ji Shi, You Wu, Zhonghui Zhu
Venue: KONG Lab, Shengzhen
Year: 2022

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Project Information:
Category: Exhibition, Curatorial
Co-Curators: Ji Shi, You Wu, Zhonghui Zhu
Venue: KONG Lab, Shengzhen
Year: 2022