M50

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While perusing my guidebook, I read about a place called M50, or 50 Moganshan Road, which is the location for Shanghai's new modern art movement. Dilapidated warehouses have been converted into over 120 small art galleries, work spaces, and tea shops since 1990. You could compare it to NYC's Soho, if that helps. I read that is a bit of an alternative scene, with a lot of organized grafitti. Since I have been a huge fan of Atlanta's "Living Walls" project, I wanted to see what M50 offered.

Of course, finding the place was a grand adventure. The fact that I couldn't find much information on how to find it didn’t worry me as much as it should have! We arrived at the correct metro station, but there was nothing in sight. That's when I realized my mistake: I left my guidebook at home, which contained the Chinese characters for the place we were looking for. It would have been much easier to point to the address to a taxi driver once we arrived at the metro station. But alas, my classmate, Kera, and I wandered around for a while until we stumbled upon a tourist center outside the train station. The woman spoke very little English and though she seemed to understand where we wanted to go, could not explain how to get there in English. Luckily, we had a Chinese student's phone number, so we were able to get the directions after she spoke to the woman. Eventually, we made it to M50.


Kera, and I wandered the galleries for an hour or so and it was very relaxing and nice. One very kind gallery owner poured Sprite into a wine glass for us while we perused the art! So of course, I had to buy a small original work of art...a finger painting! I felt very modern and sophisticated as I did so, and it was only about $10!

My favorite part was the walk back to the main drag. The cement walls were covered in random, beautiful, weird, and awesome graffiti paintings. Some seemed like pre-made prints had just been glued on the walls, whereas others had the more traditional "let me just spray paint all over this" look. Kera and I had a fun time taking pictures in front of the walls. The random Chinese workers we happened upon gave us some odd looks, but who cares? I'm a tourist! :)

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