The Prelude Exhibition of The First Shanghai Graphic Design Biennale – TopoPoster: International Poster Design Exhibition, after six months (June – December, 2025) of planning and preparation, was successfully held from December 13 to December 22, 2025. As one of the larger-scale exhibitions in recent years featuring an international selection of works in China, it showcased over 300 representative poster designs from 153 influential contemporary designers and studios active in the forefront of the field across 28 countries.

Graphic Trial

Society on the other side, viewers on this side. In between is a transparent poster with a mirrored surface. Centering on the object that makes light appear, each of them intersects, reverses, and merges with each other. The various reflections woven by the ink and varnish created a multilayered world on a single graphic sheet. The theme of the exhibition was “Beyond and Beyond the Poster. The starting point was the idea of fusing the viewer, the environment, and the artwork.

This work changes its appearance depending on the viewer. If the viewer wears black clothes, the mirror surface will be black; if the viewer wears white clothes, the mirror surface will be white. The background and reflection change with the height of the viewer and the angle from which he or she looks at the work, and the expression of the work itself also changes. The viewer’s reflection in the mirror, the view of the background through the paper, and the printed graphics; the work is formed by the fusion of these three types of images. Each of the five posters expresses “Feel” by assigning one of the five senses to each poster. The motif of the background graphic is based on the Japanese kanji characters for sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch. The images received from the five senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch were incorporated into the modeling. In addition, he brought in photographs for each of the five senses. By daring to use common, everyday objects such as plastic bags and empty cans, the work asks viewers to question the meaning of these objects.

Masashi Murakami

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