A CHANGING CHINA
China is changing more than any other country in the world. In every field the speed of this change is astonishing. The economic growth is under everyone’s eyes. “Made in China” is the rage everywhere. The urban layout has been obviously influenced by this. In today’s China the majority of the population still lives in the country or in small villages. But in the last few years the exodus towards the city has been extraordinary. These cities, while expanding, destroy anything which is considered obsolete. Besides, in order to bear the impact of such a massive urbanization, the city is forced to expand and the outcome is questionable.
In autumn 2005 I set out on a journey across China, from Beijing to Shanghai, and I visited about 10 cities, all in constant evolution. At each street-corner one is assaulted by changes. The city layout changes in a day-time; so that the house one has seen one day could have been demolished and replaced by a construction yard the day after. So, in my photographs, I have tried to fix some of the innumerable instants of the evolution of the Chinese urban landscape, in a ceaseless movement, like a cinema film frame.
The title of my project draws inspiration from Xu Jianrong’s work “A
Changing Shanghai”. This Chinese photographer in his book makes
a comparison between some images taken in the eighties’ Shanghai by
another photographer, Xu Xixian, and his new photographs taken 15 years later
in the same places. The result is even too clear.
Luca Tommasi
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