Yan Huo Qi: Collective Wisdom Through Improvisation
烟火气：即兴创造中的集体智慧
Symposium co-curated with Dream Chittmittrapap,
as part of RAMa 2025: Shanghai Picnic 外滩建筑节2025：上海野餐
Rockbund Art Museum 上海外滩美术馆
Sep 13 2025

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What makes a city human? In an increasingly standardised built environment shaped by radical industrialisation and modernisation, informal practices, such as street vendors, mark a distinct social and economic phenomenon shared by countries like China and Thailand. These practices represent improvisational ways of working, living, and functioning that coexist with planetary technological transformations yet remain deeply rooted in our own cultural contexts.

Drawing from the title Yan Huo Qi - the “Qi of smoke and fire,” which evokes the bustling vitality of a place through the sizzle of woks, chatter, bargaining, and laughter, this symposium brings together artists, architects, scholars, and street vendor owners to collectively explore the past, present, and future of informal practices as a form of collective wisdom that embraces geographical, cultural, and ecological heterogeneity.

The event comprises two sessions. The first session features a panel discussion on street food, including architect Kraipol Jayanetra (Alkhemist Architects), part of the team behind the street vendors designed for RAMa’s open square; scholar Anna Greenspan, creator of Movable Feasts, a digital humanities project mapping Shanghai’s street food; Yini Jiang, owner of Feral Bahn Mi; and co-curators Dream Chittmittrapap and Feifei Zhou. The second session focuses on the work of artist and researcher Mao Chenyu, particularly his experimental multimedia series Paddyfilm, which documents his fieldwork in rural China, and is moderated by co-curator Feifei Zhou. From street food to farming, from eating to growing, the symposium re-examines how informal practices can inspire visions of a post-industrial future through collective wisdom.

什么让一座城市更有人情味？在由激进工业化与现代化的推动下变得日益标准化的城市环境中，非正式实践活动(诸如街头摊贩等)标志着一种在中国、泰国等国家独特存在的社会与经济现象。这些实践展现出一种以“即兴”为出发点的工作、生活与运作方式——它们在与全球技术变革并存的同时，仍深深植根于我们自己的文化语境中。

借用“烟火气”这一词汇作为出发点——以油烟气和嘈杂声为代表的真实、日常、有人情味的生活氛围为题材，本次研讨会汇聚艺术家、建筑师、学者以及市集经营者，从多元视角共同探讨非正式实践的过去、当下与未来——将其视为一种包容地理、文化与生态多样性的集体智慧。

此次研讨会分为两个部分。第一部分是以“路边摊”为主题的讨论，邀请到为RAMa 的开放广场设计了别致的街头摊位的建筑师代表Kraipol Jayanetra （Alkhemist Architects）；研究项目 Movable Feasts 的发起人 Anna Greenspan；Feral Bahn Mi 创始人蒋旖旎；以及活动策化人 Dream Chittmittrapap 与周菲菲。第二部分则聚焦于艺术家和研究者毛晨雨的作品，特别是基于他在中国乡村的田野调查的实验性多媒体影像系列 Paddyfilm。这次对话将有由活动策化人周菲菲主持。

从街头美食到农业，从品尝到耕作，本次研讨会将通过非正式实践的视角来重新审视我们将如果通过集体智慧来为后工业时代的未来提供新的灵感与可能性。

Feifei Zhou, Dream Chittmittrapap, Anna Greenspan, Kraipol Jayanetra, and Yini Jiang, YAN HUO QI: Collective Wisdom Through Improvisation Panel 1, “RAMa 2025: Shanghai Picnic”, Lecture at the Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, September.13, 2025. © Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai. Photo: Zhang Yupai.

周菲菲，Dream Chittmittrapap，Anna Greenspan， Kraipol Jayanetra，蒋旖旎，“烟火气：即兴创造中的集体智慧” 第一部分，“外滩建筑节2025：上海野餐”，上海外滩美术馆讲座现场，2025年9月13日。©上海外滩美术馆。摄像：张宇派。

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