Wen-You Cai, founder and director of Special Special, opened her first solo photography exhibition along with a Special Special pop-up at MGM Macau Resort. The exhibition was accompanied by the release of her photo book "Rooster, Tiger, Sheep by Snake." The exhibition featured a collection of 175 photographs of her family, mostly on film, in black and white and color photographs, taken over the span of a decade through travel and jet-lag, at work, on vacation, and at home.
Rooster, Tiger, Sheep by Snake Exhibition
MGM Macau
October 2019-January 2020
Cyber Garden 2.0 / Plant Residency
TX Huaihai Youth Energy Center
November 25–December 5, 2021
Special Special hosts a 10 day pop-up on the second floor at the vibrant shopping mall of TX Huaihai Youth Energy Center. Featuring the Cyber Garden furniture installation from MAP along with a green screen backdrop to expand our imagined environment.Â
Shanghai locals were invited to participate in a Plant Residency with their houseplants with corresponding profiles. Selected events included an eco-tourism art project with 0135 Travel Agency by artist Hersey Lin.
VIP gift for Cai Guo Qiang’s Odyssey and Homecoming
Client: Cai Studio x ANTA
November 2020
Custom design for a set of jacket, bag, and hat and packaging, incorporating Cai Guo Qiang’s artworks, that were gifted to VIP guests at the Palace Museum exhibition of Cai Guo Qiang’s Odyssey and Homecoming Exhibition.
Cyber Garden
Museum of Art Pudong
July 8-October 31, 2021
Cyber Garden inaugurated the pop-up space at the Museum of Art Pudong (MAP). In the newly opened architecture designed by Jean Nouvel, Special Special activated the 2540 square feet pop-up space on the museum's ground floor with an immersive experience combining retail and digital art exhibition. Consisting of custom fabricated Cyber Garden furnitures that are a fusion of the natural with the synthetic, pastoral nature with cyberpunk. Pondering how gardening metaphors can nurture different understandings of the history of the World Wide Web. The internet becomes a sprawling garden of many paths, where files need "pruning" and "weeding", and ideas need to be "cultivated."Â
Inspired by nostalgia for early millennial internet cafe culture, the "Internet Cafe" installation featured 8 digital art projects from artists around the world, including Max Bittker (US), Liu Chang (China), Will Doenlen (US), Heidi Latsky & Maya Man (US), Lullatone & Jono Brandel (US), Laurel Schwulst (US), ZZYW (US), and a VR installation by Sebastian Masuda (Japan)
The retail shop is merchandised with playful Special Special art editions, and custom products created for MAP.
Plant Adoption Bureau
TANK Art Festival
September 30–October 3, 2021
Special Special Playground
MGM Macau
October 2019–January 2020
Special Special presented a playground-inspired retail pop-up at MGM featuring playful artworks and products that engage people of all ages to participate in an intimate shopping experience and artistic interactions. As a platform for creative dialogue, we extended conversation from our New York based gallery across the world to Macau.
The Playground features an extension of Sarah Verity's project from the previous year at Special Special: Share a Room With Us. Visitors are encouraged to draw a room they love or to envision their ideal stay, and the drawings are included side by side to a collective installation in space.
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Plant Adoption Bureau at CIIE
Partner: Inditex
November 5–10, 2021
For Inditex’s booth at the 2021 Chinese International Import Expo (CIIE), Special Special presented a Plant Adoption Bureau. The Adoption Bureau’s goal was to create a fulfilling and fun experience for visitors to adopt the many plants and trees at Inditex’s booth so that they could find new homes after the Expo, furthering Inditex’s commitment to sustainability in all aspects of its business.