Dr. Thomas Kiefer, Journalist

Dr. Thomas Kiefer, Aumühle

Thomas Kiefer, Aumühle near Hamburg

In November 2002 I was a member of the press section of the Delegation of Economy and Commerce as prime-minister of Schleswig-Holstein (a province of Germany) visited China. After this journey I visited congresses in Shanghai, which had the topic "Urban planning". Further I took a look to art exhibitions, which corresponded to the Shanghai-Biennale 2002 and to the artwork of Tongji-University.

I was fascinated by the fast and creative development of China. To bring a part of this positive atmosphere to Germany, I created in Shanghai the idea of bringing together economy and culture, urban planning and architecture. The result of this is the idea of the art project "Chinator", which means Gateway of China.

Three generations of Chinese artists and architects and their students helped me to develop the basic concept for the “Chinator”-project: Prof. Liu Kemin as a scholar of the generation, which was educated with the values of Konfuzius. He is a very docile and sensitive artist. His former master pupil Prof. Yin is in a closed tradition to him. The generation of artists of Prof. Yin is the first in China, which could occupy the wide world of art. He was teaching his students this new knowledge so that the impulse was given for the great development in contemporary Chinese art nowadays. This generation now plays creative with colour and form, is self-consciousness and international, without loosing its cultural roots.

Since I stayed at Tongji-University as a student in the year 1989 there is a closed friendship with Prof. Liu, Prof. Yin and architect Mrs. Fang Jian; she is our partner for technical and architectural questions of our project.

My Chinese project partners suggested realizing the “Chinator”-project with the German artist Ulf Ludzuweit, who also studied at Tongji-University in the year 1989.
„Chinator“should be a symbol for the one world, we live in, a symbol for the Chinese-German friendship.

With „Chinator“I want to express my thanks to Tongji-University.

My task in this project is searching the location, communication and contact between the different players and the coordination of questions of organization.