Today I had a two and a half hour studio day with Shen Hua. Shen Hua was the first artist that I have been able to discuss the work with at length and also the first to talk to me about their work. Shen Hua’s paintings focus on the Ban Ban and other migrant workers in Chongqing. He empathises with their stories, as he himself has made the journey from countryside to city; a journey of huge contrasts in China.
Ban Ban are the men and women, unique to Chongqing, who carry goods either end of a bamboo pole. Our first experience of the Ban Ban was when we arrived and one man carried Nina and my 23kg each suitcases – either end of a bamboo pole- up three flights of stairs to our apartment. On this occasion, Nina and I scurried after him, so we could catch him if he collapsed under the strain, but he barely broke a sweat.
We continually see people carrying large objects up and down the high street in Huang Jai Ping. Stacks of polystyrene, babies in baskets, net bags of pomellos (grapefruits the size of watermelons), clusters of water bottles and canisters of gas. Old and young, men and women. It is a basic, daily routine of many people’s lives.
It is rare to see a foreign face in Chongqing, but you do see people from all over China here. Chongqing is said to be the world’s fastest growing city; some even say, with a population of 32 million it is the world’s largest city; but there seem to be many contenders for this title. The rapid expansion of the city has not only attracted people from distant villages to come and work, but also swallowed up villages which were formally on the outskirts of Chongqing. This sudden explosion in size and population, combined with continual urban construction and demolition makes Chongqing feel quite disconcerting. I can’t get any sort of sense of the city as a whole, and as everything appears to be the same age you get no idea of the city’s past. On the surface it is a city without history. Chongqing is the former capital of China but it is very hard to find visual evidence of this and this lack of historical context adds to the feeling of disorientation.
Jessica Longmore
Wednesday 1st December
