Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last four years, you’ve probably heard of Random International’s traveling blockbuster installation, Rain Room , wherein viewers walk through simulated rain without getting wet. The installation was such a hit when it traveled to Shanghai in 2015 that a local theme park decided to install a Rain Room of their own. This month, the Jiajiale Dream Park will open their $15 million Rain Room clone called the Magic Rain Zone. Lisa Movius of The Art Newspaper labeled the park’s new attraction as “a permanent—and unauthorized— installation of falling rain similar to the internationally acclaimed Rain Room.”
Movius says that the Magic Rain Zone is just one of a number of Rain Room imitators popping up across China in recent years. There were already two in Shanghai when the original first arrived at the Yuz Museum, along with others that have gone on display in Beijing, Ningbo, Fuzhou, Yinchuan and Xining. It appears the imitations have become a lucrative business throughout the country. Online businesses like the Shanghai Binghuan Cultural Communication Company rent out 12 different versions of the Rain Room concept. Co-founder of Random International, Hannes Koch, told The Art Newspaper that its difficult to know exactly how many imitators there are considering they don’t speak Chinese, but he estimates there’s been around eight to ten attempts to copy their work.
Videos by VICE
Watch Creators’s video feature on the real Rain Room, above, and find out more about the Rain Room imitators here.
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Random International Turn 30,000 Liters Of Water Into A Monumental Tower
