Entering the exhibition hall of MoCA Shanghai, visitors will see a poetic space created by South Korean artist Park Jung-hyun. Hundreds of bright yellow strings are angled across the walls at varying heights, splitting the space into several parts. In order to walk through the space, people must navigate a winding pass or bend back to avoid the strings.

Park named this installation Disturbing (pictured above), with the obvious intention of disrupting the way a spectator looks at and experiences a space.

Curator Wang Weiwei made it the first encounter for visitors to the ongoing exhibition Space in Mind, the Shanghai stop for the current Animamix Biennale.

Animamix Biennale, initiated by MoCA Shanghai in 2007, has collaborated with multiple art spaces in and beyond China to present art from the fields of comics, animation and contemporary art across Asia.

This year's edition also covers five other art venues in China, South Korea and Indonesia.

A poster for the exhibition Photos: Sun Shuangjie/GT and courtesy of Kelly McIlvenny and MoCA Shanghai

The biennale's chief curator, Jeffrey Shaw, dean of the School of Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong, chose the theme "directed towards knowledge" for all project exhibitions; however, each exhibition in different venues still has its freedom to select different artwork with its own curator.

Wang explained that Space in Mind requires participating artists to build their own spaces at the exhibition, in which they break free from accepted views and common ideas to lead the audience to discover new ideas and insights.

For instance, Disturbing manifests the possibilities of space and modulates people's interaction with space.

Meanwhile, Chinese artist Liang Manqi also explores spatial possibilities through color and shape. Her area features lines and color blocks that often create an illusion that the original monotone square becomes a rhythmic space with flexible angles and certain emotions.

Besides Park and Liang, the exhibition also showcases 11 other artists from China, Japan, South Korea and Poland.

2D and 3D animation

Chinese artist Geng Xue's animated short Mr. Sea (above) offers a fresh view of classical Chinese stories.

Her work is permeated with an ancient and mysterious beauty, not only because the film is inspired by Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling, a writer from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), but also for her peculiar approach to modeling all the characters and scenes in the story through porcelain wares.

Liu Yi, born in Ningbo, brings a 2D animation with moving images painted with ink-wash. However, the way she displays her work is intriguing.

Titled Chaos Theory (below), it combines an animated film with a set of artistic installation of curtains painted with ink images fluttering in the wind, blown from ventilators.

Apart from these artists' installations, the exhibition is screening 44 animated shorts from around the world, among them 19 films recommended by the Japan Media Arts Festival. Another 18 award-winning works from the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film will also be shown during the exhibition.

The venue is also preparing a number of animation workshops for children. In one, Banana Fish Bookshop is inviting dozens of children to color their black-and-white comics, and the painted images will be turned into an animated video at the end of the exhibition.

Date: Until July 17, 10 am to 6 pm

Venue: MoCA Shanghai

上海当代艺术馆

Address: 231 Nanjing Road West

南京西路231号

Admission: 50 yuan ($7.66)

Call 6327-9900 for details