Intersection. Qingdao, China, 2020.
China is a country at a crossroads. The modern Republic’s economic ambition has seen many of its ageless cultural values, traditions and philosophies sacrificed for an exalted vision of a new tomorrow.
Subjected to totalitarian and technocratic rule, mitigated somewhat by the excesses of consumerism popularised by a rapidly expanding middle class, China’s 1.4 billion people are currently faced with the fusion of an established communist past and an obscure neo-capitalist future. Little remains sacred in the wake of this newfound materialism, along with an ambiguous populist ideology that seems bent on deriding as well as imitating the West. With all these dynamics intersecting, China appears to be wavering in the no man’s land of a national identity that is at odds with itself.
Using the pedestrian crossings of the city of Qingdao as a backdrop, this series is a visual metaphor for the socio-political juncture that is currently reshaping the country’s cultural landscape and the place of ordinary people in it.
Poised on the verge of a concrete and symbolic divide, the inadvertent body language of everyday citizens - waiting obediently to be swept into a neo-futuristic realm of gaudy skyscrapers and industrial clamour - seems to reveal a range of emotions in the face of transition. As they stare into the distance we see glimmers of hope, trepidation, defiance, resignation and resolve, all of which perfectly reflect the underlying sentiments of a nation in flux.
