The glamorous side of China’s rise has never been more prominent as the present: Sparkling glass skyscrapers soar into the skies over Beijing and Shanghai. Fashionable men and women peacock along the sidewalks. Sights like these point to a new era for a country that has recently taken centrestage in a rapidly changing world.
The panoramic images of Traces explore the otherworldly scenes of the Chinese industrial hinterland, landscapes that seem to be the repository for all of man’s endeavours; a record of our material desires. In contrast, the images that make up Dark Clouds evolve into an intimate chronicle of daily life in these environments. Both projects were designed to exist on their own but, more importantly, to also form concurrent chapters within a larger body of work. Each would have a distinct emphasis within an overarching theme. From the epic to the quotidian, these interweaving chapters represent two overlapping realities: the human experience of the individual,
the migrant worker, and vistas that intimate the existence of a much larger economic and ideological process, one whose momentum we struggle to control, a symbol of our collective ambitions.