Creator of Shanghai’s newest selfie magnet, The Egg House pop-up exhibition, makes no bones about its purpose
Wenzhou entrepreneur brings egg-themed installation she launched in New York to Shanghai, figuring ‘a lot of trendy people need a place to create content’ for social media; a critic calls it quick-fix entertainment for narcissists, but 25-year-old Xu Biubiu explains it has a serious theme
Artistic or narcissistic? The Egg House – a 4,900 square foot (455 square metre) pop-up exhibition space comprising several egg-themed rooms where visitors can pose in front of colourful installations to take selfies – has just landed in Shanghai, and people cannot get enough of it.
Since opening in late July, near 30,000 have passed through its yellow doors – and its creator, Xu Biubiu, is planning to launch another one in Los Angeles, having set up the first Egg House in New York in April.
The 25-year-old Wenzhou native says The Egg House taps into people’s growing obsession with creating content for social media platforms such as WeChat.
“I figured a lot of girls, bloggers or trendy people, they need a place to create content. Not everyone has time and money to travel a lot. They can come to The Egg House,” says Xu, who quit her internship as an accountant and spent two years travelling to 40 countries, visiting tourist attractions, hotels and restaurants that are popular on the internet.
“I keep travelling and take pictures and have experienced a lot of hotels, so I can have good content for my social media account,” Xu says.
The show that inspired Xu to set up The Egg House was 29Rooms by Refinery29, a digital media and entertainment company, that sparked the pop-up exhibition trend. It was 2015 and Xu recalls having to queue for eight hours to get into the exhibition in New York.