"SHENZHEN? Where is this city? What do we actually know about our sister city? How do people in Shenzhen live? How do we live? What makes your culture special? And what about our culture? Who are we?"

German artists Annie Kuschel and Birgit Nadrau said these were the questions they had addressed in their joint multimedia art project "Blickfelder Shenzhen."

The project was sponsored by the Office for Foreign Affairs in Nuremberg to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the partnership between the two sister cities.

At the invitation of the Shenzhen Municipal Foreign Affairs Office, the two German artists flew to Shenzhen three weeks ago to collect materials for their project. They finished their three-week stay at Shenzhen Fine Art Institute and flew back to Germany on Sunday.

The two artists said they didn't translate the German name of their project into English because they could not find a proper English equivalent for the German word.

A German-English dictionary may say "blickfelder" literally means "fields of vision" in English.

"But the word has more meanings in German, and we couldn't find an exact word in English to match, so we couldn't translate it directly," Kuschel explained in an interview with the Shenzhen Daily.

"If you translate the word separately, 'blick' means 'view' and 'feld' means 'field of a region' or 'a little object cut out of something,'" Kuschel added. "'Blickfeld' means 'focus on something.'"

Having known each other for more than 20 years, Nadrau and Kuschel worked together and devised a contemporary art project "Blickfelder Erlangen" for the city government of Erlangen in 2005 which chose their idea for decorating a public place in the city to make it more attractive and artistic.

Using foam imprints, they collected elements or patterns from everything they thought related to the city, such as walls, tables, and chairs, and then cast them into concrete reliefs to adorn the place.

"We emphasized little details and wanted people to realize the place was actually adorned with foreign languages," Kuschel said.

Straight after completing the project, Kuschel flew to Shenzhen and worked for an advertising company in the city for five months in the latter part of 2005.

This experience gave her the idea that "Blickfelder Erlangen" could work outside of the city of Erlangen.

"We both thought it would be good for us to do another project inter-culturally," Kuschel recalled.

As the 10th anniversary of the partnership between Shenzhen and Nuremberg is being celebrated in Germany from March to July this year, Nadrau and Kuschel wanted to arouse interest from people living around Nuremberg in their Chinese sister city with their project "Blickfelder Shenzhen."

During their three-week stay in Shenzhen, the two German artists collected about 60 foam imprints from places that interested them, from people with a special story to tell, or from simple daily situations in the city.

Their most impressive experience in the city came April 6 when Zhu Shuzhen, or Susanna, an interpreter at Shenzhen Fine Art Institute, took them to the Shizhengdayuan community in Futian District where she grew up.

Zhu was born in Guangdong Province in 1981, one year after the Shenzhen Economic Special Zone was established.

"Susanna came here when she was 2 years old. Since then she has lived in Shenzhen. Now she considers herself a Shenzhener," Kuschel said.

Zhu led the two German artists around the community, showing them the apartment where she lived and the primary school she attended, as well as the community hall, park and culture center.

The two German artists made an imprint from one Chinese character on the primary school sign.

When Susanna told the two German artists this was "one of the oldest parts of Shenzhen," Nadrau and Kuschel said they felt the "real differences" between Shenzhen and Nuremburg.

"The old parts of Shenzhen are only 27 years old, but for us, the old parts of Nuremburg go back hundreds of years," Kuschel said.

"When we talk about culture back home, it always means life hundreds of years ago, something very old, or something traditional," Nadrau said.

"And this is something that doesn't exist in Shenzhen," Nadrau stressed. "So while we live in the past, Shenzhen lives very much in the present."

As a part of their project, Nadrau and Kuschel created the Web site: blickfelder.org, where they have documented their stay in China with photos.

Anyone who is interested in their project can follow their daily work and travel experiences in Shenzhen by viewing photos they posted every day.

Now Nadrau and Kuschel have returned to Germany, they will cast the foam imprints they have collected into aluminum or concrete reliefs. Some of the reliefs will be given to participating cities and administrative district-counties in the Nuremberg region including Erlangen, Fuerth, Schwabach, Nuernberger Land, Erlangen-Hoechstadt, Fuerth and Roth.

Finally, they want to document their art project "Blickfelder Shenzhen" in a catalogue. They will also write stories about selected reliefs.

Nadrau and Kuschel now have a new project in mind. They hope to find sponsorship to complete "Blickfelder Nuremberg," - a "Blickfelder" made in the Nuremberg region and bring it to Shenzhen.

Editor: Wing