Anime, designer toys, sneakers, digital art: 5 contemporary cultural events in Beijing in October

The Asia Digital Art Exhibition 2020 includes an immersive Star Trek-style installation from artist Hito Steyerl featured at the German pavilion in Venice

More than 100 pairs of limited-edition sneakers from brands including Under Armour and Nike are on show at the Wonderland Trendy Shoe Art Show

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A screenshot from Breakfast Ritual: Art Must be Artificial (2019) by Chuck Kuan and Yining Fei, a nine-minute 4K animation work playing at Immaterial / Re-material: A Brief History of Computing Art at Beijing’s Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art. Photo: UCCA

Published: 8:45am, 3 Oct 2020Updated: 8:45am, 3 Oct 2020

There has been a greater sense of anticipation towards the “golden week” holiday in China this year as it is the first long break since the coronavirus pandemic was brought under control in the country.

The start of the holiday, which runs from October 1 to 7 and this year encompasses the Mid-Autumn Festival as well as National Day, had already seen many workers deserting cities for the countryside to soothe their pent-up travel urge and reunite with their families.

Beijing has remained buzzing largely because the city is immensely popular among domestic travellers during the week-long holiday. But forget about the traditional tourist haunts, as the Chinese capital is now home to many contemporary cultural events. Here are five worth visiting.

Asia Digital Art Exhibition 2020

Held at the Beijing Times Art Museum’s Rongyi Digital Culture Development Centre, this show aims to explore the relationship between humans and digital technology, and how the latter can be used to interpret Asian civilisation and Chinese culture. It features 32 digital artworks by 33 artists from around the world, 10 of which have never been shown in public before.

One of the artworks on show is Prototype-1 by Wang Zhiou, who worked with famous film director Zhang Yimou to stage the eight-minute light show at the closing ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, that heralded the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. The installation sees beams of laser light projected onto a giant glowing rectangular arch around which two artists dance to futuristic music.