In 2026, Guomao launches a comprehensive renewal through GUOMAO SPRING. As the one-directional logic of the traditional department store gives way to a more curated spatial and cultural experience, new questions arise about how architecture can be reinterpreted and renewed over time. It is from this moment of transformation that Origin, Ongoing, emerges. Here, “Origin” is understood not as a single point in the past, but as a threshold that can be entered again and again—a convergence of multiple beginnings. “Ongoing” invites us to see Guomao not as a completed structure, but as a site that continues to evolve, open to new meanings and new forms of inhabitation. Together, the two suggest a framework through which the building may be continually revisited, reread, and re-imagined. The comma gestures toward what lies between—an extension of meaning across past, present, and future.

Bringing together public installations and thematic exhibitions, the GUOMAO SPRING Art Project invites artists to engage with this moment of transition through works conceived in dialogue with the site. Through the recontextualizing capacity of art, the project seeks to reconsider the contemporary significance of the building itself. Layers of everyday life, accumulated memories, and changing patterns of behavior give a space its depth through time. The exhibition reflects on these overlapping histories while imagining new possibilities for the future. At its core is a shift—from the inertia of a singular pace toward a plurality of lived experiences; from narratives centered on efficiency alone toward a renewed sense of public life and shared cultural space.

The beginning begins again. What remains ongoing remains in motion. Ever open to experiences yet to come.

The overall project is launched with five works installed first, unfolding around themes such as the everyday and memory, labour, consumption, and creation. It aims to use the city’s historical nodes as observational reference points, to calibrate the present urban reality, and to probe possibilities for a more distant future.

源启镜像

Origin Mirror

萨纳兹・马齐纳尼（多伦多）《思辨境面Ⅱ》

Sanaz Mazinani （Toronto）Speculative Horizons-2

三件式装置如山峦起伏，一侧为大地肌理，一侧为平整镜面，以数字“三”呼应当年国贸大厦落成时门前的《友谊》雕塑，凝结现在与过去的对话，亦是深圳与世界的回响。镜面映射深港青春大道街景、来往人流与国贸轮廓。马卡龙色系以柔光重启城市记忆，弱化了城市空间的硬朗感，也赋予场域以轻盈的未来想象力。

This three-piece installation looks like rolling hills, with each piece featuring a flat mirror on one side and mountainous texture on the others. “Three” echoes the "Friendship" sculpture installed at the entrance to Guomao Building when it was completed. The work encapsulates a dialogue between the present and the past, and a resonance between Shenzhen and the rest of the world. The mirrors, reflecting the streetscape of Shenzhen-Hong Kong Youth Avenue, passersby, and the contours of Guomao Building, intricately integrate the work into its surroundings. The macaron scheme veils like a gentle spring mist, and the soft light rekindles memories of the city, softening the hardness of the urban environment, awakening people’s gentle memories of the city’s past while imbuing the area with a light, futuristic vision, and allowing passersby to pause for a moment and engage in a gentle interaction with the cityscape.   

观看沉积

Viewing Sedimentation

胡介鸣（上海）《寻像器/商场》

Hu Jieming（Shanghai）Viewfinder / Mall

作品表现的是商场中形态各异的玻璃窗——透过相机寻像器的窗口，经眼睛感知后被记录下来的图像，在感性的冥想与数字算法的共同作用下，生成新的图景，从而引发新的视觉认知可能。玻璃界面上的抽象图景，是日常经验在反复观看中的沉积，抽象和具象的相互演绎与周遭环境碰撞，在光影中形成跨越时空的对话。

This work presents the images of various glass windows in the mall, which are derived from the images perceived through a camera viewfinder and recorded by the artist. Through the interplay of meditation and digital algorithms, new visual landscapes emerge, opening up new possibilities for visual perception. The glass windows of Guomao bear witness to Shenzhen speed, a window through which the city looked out to the world in the Reform and Opening-up era, and a vessel bearing myriad urban memories. The tapestry of abstraction and figuration forms a dialogue across time and space.

劳作创造

Labour Creation

陆平原（上海）《我可爱的生活》

Lu Pingyuan（Shanghai）My Lovely Life

作品以《汉泽尔与格莱特》这一经典格林童话为源文本，借由多种媒介，对故事中的角色与意象进行提取与重组。作品中童话人物的劳作场景被以一种超现实的方式还原：燃烧的锅炉，一旁的饼干模具与刚刚出炉的饼干，共同构成了一个既熟悉又陌生的日常生活图景。艺术家将自己的创作日常与童话人物的劳作现场重叠，试图召唤出超越现实的多元意义。

This mixed-media work extracts and recombines the characters and imagery from its source text “Hansel and Gretel”, a classic tale from Grimms’ Fairy Tales . The scenes of the fairy tale characters at work are recreated in a surreal way: a burning boiler, cookie molds and freshly baked cookies, rendering a scene of everyday life that feels both familiar and strange. The artist overlaps his own creative routines with the fairy tale characters’ work scenes, attempting to evoke multiple meanings that transcend reality.

消费与新物质

Consumption and The New Materiality

刘展（北京）《联合 制造》

Liu Zhan（Beijing）United Manufacture

艺术家以“联合制造”品牌的名义制作了一系列三维作品，并将其转化为抽象化的新物质产品。几组作品大小不一并置，呈现出“产品”或“消费品”气息，但本质又是艺术品。作品置于商业消费语境中，作品/消费品被转化为抽象化的新物质，物欲与思想在此搅拌。

The artist created a series of three-dimensional works under the brand “United Manufacture”, and transformed them into new abstract material products. Several groups of works, varying in size, are juxtaposed, presenting an aura of “products” or “consumer goods”, yet are essentially works of art. Placed within a commercial and consumer context, the artworks or commodities have been turned into some new ambiguous objects where material desire and intellectual reflection intermingle.

日常与集体记忆

The Everyday and Collective Memory

白双全（香港）《浅层摄影》

Pak Sheung Chuen（Hong Kong）Surface Photography