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For the forthcoming 100% Design Shanghai that will run from June 26-28, WOKmedia, founded by Julie Mathias and Wolfgang Kaeppner has partnered with Contrasts gallery to present a new collaborative work titled Night Watch.  The London-based design-duo established the design collective WOKmedia in 2004 and have developed an affinity for China and its cultural and artistic traditions.

Night Watch is a lighting installation that uses the ancient Chinese art of “inside painting,” a traditional form of Chinese art in which an image is reverse-painted through a small opening onto the interior wall of a vessel. Hollow crystal balls are inside painted and then illuminated with automotive lights to mimic the mesmerizing glow given by animal eyes hit by a beam of light at night. A secret life unfolds when multiple pairs of animal eyes—100 in this installation—are placed among bushes and trees in a special covered outdoor exhibition space; they are watching us, as much as we are watching them.

Contrasts Gallery first invited WOKmedia to China in 2006 for its Crossovers exhibition, charging them to create new work that would cross the boundary between art and design.  WOKmedia presented A New Breed, an installation of porcelain eggs with provocative inside paintings. These images contested the purity symbolised by an unblemished white egg by tarnishing the interior with a sly reference to ‘forbidden fruit.’

After this successful initial collaboration, WOKmedia returned to China to inaugurate Contrasts Gallery’s artist residency program. The Gallery converted a former plastics factory into an artists’ residence with living quarters and workspaces designed to accommodate four or five artists at a time, all situated above a ground floor special exhibition space. The designers-in-residence work closely with Contrasts Gallery’s production team, who help realize their vision by liaising with local craftsmen. Recent “residents” have included Maarten Baas, Isidro Blasco, Patrice Butler, Studio Makkink & Bey, and Peter Ting.

100% Design Shanghai will be held at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre, 1333 West Nanjing Road from June 26-28, 2008.