Cinema on paper
A storyboard breaks a sequence into images: where a person stands, how a view changes, what movement must happen between one frame and the next. Drawings, mood boards, annotated scripts, notebooks and photographs can serve related roles. They turn an idea into something that a director, cinematographer, designer or animator can share with colleagues.
The exhibition’s first chapter runs at Fondazione Prada’s Osservatorio in Milan from 30 January to 8 September 2025. That presentation brings together more than 800 items by over 50 authors, from the late 1920s to 2024. The Shanghai chapter is a separate adaptation; its final selection belongs to the rooms of Rong Zhai rather than the Milan display.
A film exhibition in a house
Rong Zhai is the 1918 Shanghai residence restored by Prada and reopened as a cultural venue in 2017. It places this account of planning and image-making inside a sequence of domestic rooms. Harris’s curatorial premise is unusually tangible: the film that audiences know begins as a collection of partial, provisional things on paper. A written note or an altered drawing can preserve a decision that disappears into the completed scene.
Dates and venue
Opens 4 November 2025 at Prada Rong Zhai / Prada荣宅, 186 North Shaanxi Road, Jing’an / 静安区陕西北路186号. The Shanghai programme runs through 1 February 2026. The venue’s exhibition hours are Tuesday–Sunday, 10:00–18:00. Its official page carries the Shanghai selection and visitor information.