Beyond Nostalgia: Curating Shanghai’s Resiliency

by Catherine Eves 

Curator Hantao Shi (MA 2008) doesn’t believe in leaning on nostalgia.

It’s certainly a compelling theme for any exhibit—it reliably stirs up big feelings and personal memories, all but promising the viewer will walk away feeling moved. But nostalgia can also be a shortcut, a safe and easy route. This isn’t Shi’s way, even given his impressive curatorial career focusing on chronicling his home city of Shanghai and its rich history of profound cultural, social, and economic transformation.

Past exhibitions, such as Commemorating Shanghai 1980s (2012), Commemorating Shanghai 1990s (2017), and Reminiscence: Nine Episodes of Behind the Bund (2021) offer a retrospective of the city’s history while offering potential criticism related to who is benefitting from these changes: society in general, or those who hold power? This basic theme was extrapolated in the 2018 Shanghai Biennale, of which Shi was chief coordinator. In part, the Biennale asked viewers to consider the theme Proregress: Art in an Age of Historical Ambivalence in the context of China’s eras of transformation as opportunities to critically engage with the city’s progression and regression. In speaking on the Biennale, Shi said the exhibition showed how “everything has two sides.” At the same time Shanghai saw great progress, the city also saw many drawbacks that accompany capitalism and Western ideals. Shi wants to examine that gap in the exhibitions he curates. “The stratification of the society… the gap [between rich and poor] is getting much bigger than before,” he said.

This approach aligns with Shi’s broader curatorial philosophy: art should encourage deeper engagement with the outside world. For him, exhibitions are a platform for social engagement, where people can reflect on both personal and collective histories. This was already part of his philosophy before coming to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), with 10 years of arts experience under his belt. Shi remembers his time in the Master's of Arts Administration and Policy program as pivotal for shaping his vision and career, especially the class Arts Organization in Society, taught by faculty members Rachel Weiss and Nick Lowe.

“[SAIC] helped me to rethink what I was doing and who I am. Who is the arts administrator? That’s a very fundamental and significant question for me,” Shi said. “It changed my way of looking at what I was doing and what was happening around me.”

Amid the uncomfortable truths Shi explores in his work, society is made up of regular people going about their daily life—remaining resilient in the face of turmoil. Shi’s most recent curatorial effort, Robert van der Hilst Shanghai: Time & Timeless 1990–93 at Fotografiska Shanghai, is a perfect example of this. The photography exhibition explores one of Shanghai’s most transformative periods. A time when the city—and China at large—began to emerge as a global economic powerhouse, influenced by the gradual infiltration of Western business and its corresponding socio-cultural shifts.

"[SAIC] helped me to rethink what I was doing and who I am. ... It changed my way of looking at what I was doing and what was happening around me."

In the exhibit, Shi highlights Robert van der Hilst's photographs that best capture this shift toward rapid modernization and economic expansion: traditional architecture, out-of-fashion hairdos, and antiquated clothing sit side-by-side with the first signs of global capitalism and Western influences. Together, the photographs show the coexistence of old and new Shanghai. “A lot of people experienced the old Shanghai just disappearing in front of you,” said Shi. But change, though challenging, remains an integral part of the city's identity.

Shi said his aim for the exhibit was not to indulge in nostalgic longing but to foster deeper feelings of connection. “We don’t want that kind of historical significance [to] become very cheap,” Shi said. It’s a philosophy rooted in Shi’s belief as a curator that art should never be simplified and reduced to capture only the superficial beauty of a place.

In a time, according to Shi, when much of Shanghai’s arts and culture speaks only to the desires of the rich and powerful, he believes it is up to the curator to challenge these state-owned forces. “It’s quite complicated,” Shi said. “Some things are important for this city. Some things are even dangerous for artists.”

Shi hopes to continue exploring the tensions between tradition and modernity, between those who benefit from political capital and those who don’t. His curatorial projects, from large-scale events like the 2018 Shanghai Biennale to more intimate exhibitions like the one with van der Hilst, strive to create a sense of collective experience—one that engages viewers in a shared dialogue about history, society, and identity as a collective people, stronger together amid a rapidly changing environment.

“Today, everything [is] online or on your cell phone, everything is disconnected,” Shi said. In the works he curates, he hopes to engage, instead, with the energy you’d feel walking out of a shop and greeting the people passing by. “We hope people can experience the connection, the feeling of the streets.” ■