This past week, in addition to participating in large public culture events, I also had the opportunity to visit two privately organized cultural spaces. The first was a private collection of shoushan stone carvings (寿山石) and the second was a community museum.

So some preliminary thoughts about what these spaces suggest about post COVID culture in Shenzhen.

Who: The owners of these two spaces are close in age; both were born in the 70s, to parents who were actively engaged in the 1980s construction of Shenzhen. Loosely, speaking both can be considered part of the Shen-2 (深圳二代) generation, but both came of age before the city had a generation that unproblematically grew up as a Shenzhener. The collector of shoushan stone carvings (let’s call him “Stone”) was born in Xixiang, in western Bao’an County in the early 1970s. He was a teenager when the second line went up and lade the foundation of his wealth in Luohu during the 1990s. The director of the green space (let’s call her “Green”) was born in the Northeast in the late 1970s, joining her parents in Shenzhen to attend elementary school in Luohu during the mid1980s. Her father was a member of the civil engineering corps that had been deployed to lay the basic infrastructure of the SEZ between 1978 and 1982. In the early 1990s as Shenzhen expanded into Futian, Green’s family moved into one of the SEZ’s first “middle class” developments.

What: Stone’s collection is displayed on the second floor of his family villa (别墅). The first floor of the villa is a business space, while he and his family live in the third floor. Green has set up a low carbon garden with a focus on attracting migrating butterflies, an office and two exhibition rooms in an urban village. The second floor is a “spa” (for lack of a better word) dedicated to mental self-care, where guests can relax and–for a fee–drink tea. The profits from the spa will be used to run the museum.

Where: Stone’s villa is located in eastern Luohu, in what was once one of the most expensive residential areas in Shenzhen. Green has rented the courtyard, and first and second floors of a building located at the edge of an urban village in northern Futian, near her childhood home. These locations suggest the cultural geography of Shenzhen’s generation 70. Locals who were born in the 70s have tended to remain either in their home villages or to establish themselves in Luohu, which remains the most “Cantonese” of Shenzhen’s downtown areas. In contrast, children who were born in the 70s and immigrated with their parents to the SEZ in the 1980s are split between Luohu and Futian. Although they are Cantonese-speaking, many of this generation were the first to fully embrace Mandarin and western cultural norms, including modern art and the idea of public culture.

When: Stone and Green took different paths to becoming owners of cultural spaces. Stone began collecting in the early 2000s, educating himself about different rocks, including shoushan and jade. Playing with taste was popular among among wealthy locals and their friends, who by the 2010s had amassed enough wealth to attend auctions in China and elsewhere. In addition to stones, locals have also collected calligraphy, ink paintings and tea. (One of my first experience with one of these collections was in Shuiwei). These private collections were of a piece with contemporaneous investment in ancestral halls and temples. In Shenzhen, this aesthetic is referred to as “traditional.”

At the same time that locals were investing in traditional art, many of Shenzhen’s more urbane residents had begun collecting modern art. This push toward modern art was part of the impetus for Art Basel to establish a venue in Hong Kong, where wealthy collectors from the big 4 (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen) could bid on international art. Green came of age among people with a preference for what is generally understood to be “international” art, receiving a master’s in public art and museum curation. In the 2010s (when Handshake 302 was just launching), Green was part of the move to popularize art and culture in the city, running public programs for museums and public events (such as the Biennial).

Why: Both Stone and Green have opened their spaces because they believe that culture is a public good to be shared.

Hypothesis du jour: Stone and Green have created two different venues that reflect different understandings of “public,” different aesthetics, and different subjects positions within Shenzhen’s recent history.

Stone, for example, has worked within and among local and overseas communities, where traditional Chinese art continues to be highly valued. (Check out, for example, how tea has been integral to doing business in the city.) In this context, “public” refers to a selective group that includes co-villagers, other Shenzhen locals, and business partners. It makes sense that he has transformed his private home into a multi-use space because seeing the collection (with its museum quality items) is by invitation only.

In contrast, Green’s colleagues are modern artists and designers who not only believe that museums are important public venues, but are also trained in western cultural forms. Green has worked in museums and continues to use the museum as a vehicle for sharing public culture. In this context, “public” refers to the mass public of modern societies. It makes sense that she has rented a street-level compound in an urban village, where anyone in the neighborhood can walk in and enjoy the garden and exhibitions (during work hours, of course).