Dunedin Photographic Exhibition Features At Shanghai’s Historic Yu Garden

Shanghai (Thursday, 18 April 2013) – Shanghai residents and visitors can now get a glimpse of the Dunedin Chinese Garden and its New Zealand sister city.

Mayor of Dunedin Dave Cull, who is in Shanghai as part of a city delegation, yesterday officially opened the Lan Yuan Photo Show at a ceremony at Shanghai’s Yu Garden.

“By giving Dunedin exposure by way of the photographic exhibition, Yu Garden provides a wonderful window on our city in one of the biggest cities and largest economies in the world,” Mr Cull says.

Yu Garden staged a cocktail function for the exhibition opening, with a traditional Chinese ‘string and bamboo’ musical quartet and a famous calligrapher and artist producing works in the 200-year-old courtyard.

In Dunedin, Dunedin Chinese Garden Manager Margo Reid says the Garden was thrilled to have the opportunity to display photographs and information at one of the oldest and largest gardens in Shanghai. The Yu Garden is about 450 years old and attracts 1.3 million visitors a year.

Yu Garden staff made the offer to host an exhibition as a way to commemorate the Dunedin Chinese Garden’s fifth birthday, which will be celebrated in September 2013. April is also Culture Month in the Huangpu District, the area where the Yu Garden is located.

“The Yu Garden is our Sister Garden and they tell us that they have many friends but only one ‘sister’. We are very honoured by their gesture to help us celebrate this milestone. The relationship has just grown from strength to strength since the agreement was signed in 2010,” she says.

The exhibition, on display at one of the Garden’s exhibition halls, features 33 photographs of the Dunedin Chinese Garden and 13 photographs of Dunedin, as well as a selection of photographs showing the developing relationship through visits by both sides to the respective sister city gardens.

The photographs were sent over in March and the exhibition will be up until the end of April.

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ENDS

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