Adrian Blackwell’s art work Tricycle Market is being exhibited as part of The Solutions: International Design Exhibition at the 2011 Chengdu Biennale, curated by Ou Ning. The Biennale runs from September 29 to October 30, 2011 in Chengdu, Sichuan, People’s Republic of China.

The tricycle is an urban migrant worker’s tool, a means to make a living by moving, collecting, or selling things. It acts as a minimal means of production, providing its owner with a foothold in the market economy and a small measure of autonomy from the control of finance capital.

Tricycle Market employs migrant workers to provide basic services to Biennale visitors and participants. The market is constructed by a grouping of cargo tricycles and a shelter of standard construction tarpaulins. Together they form a minimal architecture, protecting users of the market from the sun and rain and necessitating the collective organization of the different vendors within the market.
 
The Tricycle Market valourizes China’s cargo tricycles as examples of sustainable urban transportation for the world. It places the migrant service worker at the center of the biennale, rendering the invisibility of migrant labour visible. The Tricycle Market allows the individual structure of the tricycle to play a role in a collective intervention within the city, providing an architectural mediation of demands for autonomy and collectivity.

Blackwell will also be giving a paper entitled “The praxis of virtual architecture as a circuit of deterritorialization and action” as part of the Design as Social Engineering panel discussion at the Biennale on Friday September 30th. The paper examines the political potential of virtual architecture within contemporary architectural practice.