From intuition to execution: how to turn an idea into a 2000 sqm exhibition?

In spring 2021, I walked into the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning for the first time, and a picture formed instantly: Jacky Tsai's work belonged in this space. It took two years to prove that instinct right.

The exhibition opened in October 2023 — Jacky's first solo retrospective in southern China. Nearly 2,000 square metres of Gallery A3, seven chapters, dozens of works spanning close to twenty years, from painting to interactive digital art. I initiated the project and served as its chief producer.

Over those two years, I was involved in every stage from concept to delivery. I developed the curatorial framework and spatial design alongside Jacky, selected works with the museum director, and navigated the proposal through institutional review and approval. The seven chapters needed a narrative logic that would carry an audience through two decades of one artist's thinking — and a spatial rhythm that made the journey feel inevitable rather than encyclopaedic. I assembled an execution team working across London, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, and coordinated installation fabrication, digital content production, lighting design, music licensing, and construction management. Among the key commissions: a scale replica of the Orient Express, and an immersive audiovisual space that traced the arc of Jacky's entire career.

After opening night, the work continued. Launch events, an artist roundtable, a professional docent programme, a full line of exhibition merchandise, and a media strategy developed in close collaboration with Jacky — all designed to keep the exhibition alive and growing across its three-month run.

There was no gallery behind this. No existing institutional mechanism to lean on. A young, London-based Chinese artist staging a major retrospective at one of China's leading public museums — every link in the chain had to be built from scratch. My role was less that of a traditional curator and closer to something like the project's engine: spotting the opportunity, pulling the resources together, building the structure, driving execution, and then keeping the whole thing running.