At the K11 Art Foundation, "The Shanghai Urban Fauna Mapping Project" looked at three of Shanghai’s most common animals to discuss the city's rapidly changing urbanscape and the ideological premises this mutation relies on. Through the ‘easily understandable’ urban animal, communism, modernity and neo-liberalism were discussed concepts.
The sparrow, the pigeon and the dog symbolized at one point the enemy of the governing ideology: the sparrow was once targeted by Mao Zedong’s Four Pests Campaign and today is the most visible urban animal in Shanghai; the pigeon, a member of Chinese society for centuries as food, messenger and entertainment, is today, progressively disappearing like the older social structures and values they belonged to; and finally dog ownership is growing as bigger apartments in the newly built towers are more common, disposable income available and less family-oriented lifestyles appearing.
This led to a published map, a walk, workshop and artist talk.