By Manuela Zechner and Anja Kanngieser.

In July 2010, we initiated a series of conversations with young workers, students and interns in Shanghai. At that time the city was in the midst of hosting a World Expo. After the event we wrote our collaborative reflections on questions asked about desires, possible futures, labour conditions, bodies, psyches and mobilities. These conversations were always infused by a backdrop of Shanghai's LED dreams of becoming a world city of urban sustainability, a thread that runs through all of what follows.