Instant Hutong art project investigates the borderline case of Hutong districts in old downtown Beijing. The work explores both spatial and social aspects to screen the uniqueness of a urban tissue made of lanes and courtyard houses and the community of people living in it. It is organized as a series of art pieces and installations on the border between art, social investigation and urban research in the aim to generate and stimulate an open debate. The work is currently involving questions such density, unstructured reappropriation, gentrification, relationship between people and their physical space, property speculation, disappearing community and identity.

MARCELLA CAMPA and STEFANO AVESANI have been interested in the urban growth of Chinese cities and their transformation since 2003. In 2005 they co-edited the n.78 monographic issue of the international magazine AREA about Chinese contemporary visual art and architecture. They have been awarded with the international Archiprix prize in Glasgow for a double coordinated project for historical districts in downtown Beijing and Shanghai. They moved to China in October 2005 and started working on the Instant Hutong project. Since 2007 their work took part in several exhibitions in China and abroad. Marcella Campa has been chosen to receive the Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant for year 2010. Marcella and Stefano currently live and work in Beijing

2010 Pollock-Krasner Grant
           New York, USA
2009 Movin’Up 2009
           Turin, Italy
2005 Archiprix International 2005, Hunter Douglas Award
Glasgow, Scotland