Mostly, you should spend your holidays lying around on your couch, ordering delivery, and being mildly disappointed by The Book of Boba Fett but pleasantly surprised by that Station Eleven show, which is pretty good if you put the effort it.

Oh, also there are some art exhibitions you could see? Nineteenth century impressionism? Egyptian mummies? Some light installation thing? Maybe?

Eh...?

‘The Soul Trembles' @ Long Museum

From December 19, 2021 to March 6, 2022, Long Museum is presenting ‘The Soul Trembles' by Shiota Chiharu, showcasing the artist's insights on a bunch of hardcore questions such as life, death, and what does it all mean anyways. Born in Osaka, Shiota has been based in Berlin and is known for creating gigantic installations with red and black threads, demonstrating the complex connections between people and objects. Huh!

That's a lot of threads, right.

Long Museum is hosting the largest solo exhibition of Shiota ever, including drawings, installations, theatre projects, and more.

The exhibition covers two floors, starting from one of her most famous installations "Uncertain Journey", which greets visitors upon arrival.

Ends with this pretty goth piano.

‘The Soul Trembles' is open for the duration of the holidays but closed on Mondays.

‘Meet Egypt' @ Meet You Museum

Kind of a cool one if you're into Egyptology. ‘Meet Egypt' is an exhibition of mummies in the newly constructed Meet You Museum in North Jing'an. They're showing 107 pieces and 6 golden mummies from Ancient Egypt.

Meet the mummies!

Brrrr! Dead bodies! Goosebumps! These relics are all from Manchester Museum (of course), excavated by the British during that whole colonialism thing.

The exhibition explores the less-known history of the Graeco-Roman Period of Ancient Egypt, displaying quite the selection of what the wealthy people used and collected at the time.

The exhibition runs until April 20, or until one of these guys wakes up from their terrible slumber and wrecks ancient havoc on Shanghai with sandstorms and swarms of scarabs and things. ‘Meet Egypt' is closed January 31 to February 2, opening back up on February 3. (Closed on Mondays.)

‘Meet Impressionism' @ Meet You Museum

Surprise! More things to "meet" at the very same museum. This time: ‘Meet Impressionism'.

(I know, I know...)

‘Meet Impressionism' covers a large-scale, wide-reaching evolution of the genre, featuring 35 artists, including big names like Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Eugene Delacroix, Gustave Courbet, and more.

61 pieces in all, the exhibition is divided into five chapters based on the development of painting in Europe from Romanticism, Realism, and the Barbizon school, to Modernist Impressionism and more, with a heavy emphasis on depictions of nature.

There is also a QR code next to each painting, where you can access both audio and textual info about the specific piece, as well as a digital form of the work. (Not an NFT.)

‘Meet Impressionism' is closed January 31 to February 2, opening back up on February 3. (Closed on Mondays.)

‘Temple of Light' @ Temple of Light Immersive Theatre

From Paris to Shanghai to all over your retinas is ‘Temple of Light', a fully immersive lighting installation on the banks of the Huangpu River. It's hidden in a 600-square-meter, 7-meter-high box outfitted with "3LCD projector technology and Meyer Sound's ULTRA-X20 spatialized sound system" – blah, blah, blah – AKA a soothing and mesmerizing box of light that will rinse you out for 40 minutes or so.

The installation has two pieces: ""Ukiyo-e Visions" and "Mutations." "Ukiyo-e Visions" comprises the bulk of the piece and is massive renderings of 17th-19th century Japanese print art, replete with Great Waves of Kanawaga, exploding sakura trees, and feudal conflict. "Mutation", coming from a totally different, very much more Kraftwerk kind of place, is an abstract, absolutist screen-saver, ASMR bliss-ride that takes you over with spinning geometric shapes, waves, and angles.

‘Temple of Light' is closed January 31 to February 1, opening from February 2, onwards. (Closed on Mondays.)

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