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The Promise of Blooming is a research about improvised gardens in historical compounds of Shanghai. We could call it domestic landscaping and it is set up by elder neighbors.
I lived two years in Shanghai. I took advantage of the spring months to tour some of these areas and draw the plants their inhabitants take care of. Through this exercise of observation and repetition, I have been able to study how life happens at its smallest scale in a 24-million-people city.
The result of this study consists of two series of 150 drawings (one for each spring I have spent in Shanghai).
Bananafish Books, an independent publisher from Shanghai, invited me to participate in their artist residency program. They published a book with the 150 drawings of the first series. During the summer of 2018, I went to Bananafish, after my office shift, in order to print the book at their risograph workshop.
VICE China filmed a short documentary on the independent publishing industry in China on the occasion of the Shanghai UNFOLD Artist Book Fair 2018. They included the process making of The Promise of Blooming artist book. You can watch it here.
The Pearl Art Museum of Shanghai commissioned a second edition of the book. 365 copies were printed to celebrate their first anniversary, since the museum director considered the spirit of the project was auspicious.
Tanni, a Hong Kong-based fashion brand, used some of the drawings to design part of their clothing and accesories collection in 2020.
You can purchase the book here.
> First series: 2018, 150 drawings, 15x13 cm, ball pen and colour pencils on paper
Second series: 2019, 150 drawings, 6x15 cm, ball pen on paper
Artist book: 11 x 13 cm, 160 pages, first edition of 300 copies; second edition of 365 copies
Printed in risograph (eleven colours), book design by Wei Guan. Published by Bananafish Books
© Edén Barrena, 2025