In Shenzhen, China, the term “urban village” refers to a vernacular urban typology that has emerged out of village settlements that no longer, or only partially, exist, and continue to expand today. In these dense, urbanized spaces, the preservation of village terminology allows us to explore a vernacular geography of “modernized”, “urbanized”, and “everyday” spaces within a larger discourse about China’s urban growth and Shenzhen’s history, its development trajectories, and governmental interventions in its built environment. This talk focuses on my experience co-curating an experimental art and ethnographic space called the “Handshake 302 Village Hack Residency” that engages the living history of the urban village of Baishizhou and Shenzhen’s history more generally. Handshake 302 exploits the semiotic discrepancies between art space programs and low cost housing to provide an accessible sociology of an urban village. The talk explores how the definition, rezoning, and rebuilding of these neighborhoods simultaneously evaluates the history of urban modernity (and the ordinary people who made it) and posits the city’s future (and the people who are welcome there).

Mary Ann O’Donnell is an anthropologist, urban ethnographer, artist, and educator living in Shenzhen, China, where she is the director of CZC Special Forces,  a citizen group that aims to bring Shenzhen’s urbanized villages into public discussions about urban planning and renewal projects. She is also an editor at Architectural Worlds.