Now in the final days of our residency we have met a German artist who is mid way through a 3 month residency in Chongqing, he is sharing a studio with a French artist who is coming to the end of a 2 month residency. The first European artists we’ve met since we’ve been here.
They have been sourcing materials from houses marked for demolition. On their numerous trips they have stumbled across people sleeping and people stripping copper from electrical cables. Their studio is now home to a large framed wedding photograph claimed from one of the houses.
We have been there too, at the start of our residency during a exploration of the city centre we stumbled across the same houses. We took some photographs from outside standing on the pavement, we wrote (briefly) about it in a previous post and uploaded 2 of the images. From outside we could see the contents of peoples’ lives exposed, upturned and left to mould, we had no desire to go any further, it just felt too intrusive to do so.
Nina Chua
December 4th
