Art is an invitation, not a test.

The project today

Old City Arts continues this project with permission to represent it and use its materials. Our editorial desk creates looking exercises, route outlines, original diagrams and source-linked place guides. The website brings its earlier directory into a useful present-day format. Individual venues organise their own exhibitions, admissions and bookings.

What we make

Start with a place, a material or a question. Our guides help you notice details, compare works and prepare a manageable visit. Source-linked records connect the neighbourhood’s different generations of galleries, museums, performance spaces and design businesses. New editorial writing is credited to the Old City Arts editorial desk.

How sources are handled

Place addresses and programme descriptions link to Old City District and official venue information. Dated directory entries and recovered print documents supply context for the neighbourhood notebook. Print deadlines, exhibition dates and earlier addresses retain the dates of their sources; they are not substituted for current visitor information.

The project’s origins

The domain’s surviving 2000s pages describe the Old City Arts Association as formed in 1991, as the district brought together galleries, theatre companies, artist cooperatives, workshops, schools, dance, design and museums. The neighbourhood stories explain that development using the actual dated records.

DaDa: follow a directory name back to its two preserved records.

Hurong Lou Gallery: connect a preserved neighbourhood map with artists’ exhibition histories.

Images and diagrams

Original photographs from the project’s earlier pages are presented with source links and capture dates. The recovered files do not identify every work or photographer; missing credits are not invented. These images do not establish a current exhibition. Our conceptual studio compositions are editorial illustrations of materials, light and visual form. They are not documentary photographs of venues or artists’ works. The process diagrams and street schematic are original explanatory graphics, with adjacent text equivalents.

Corrections and planning

When preparing a visit, use the venue’s current programme and contact page. Source links accompany the relevant place or story, so you can check addresses, arrangements and context. The editorial desk keeps these practical details separate from dated accounts of earlier programmes.