A Shanghai Dream

All these photos are about the familiar Shanghai in my memory. When I was still a child, these types of old factories and buildings were everywhere, alive and full of energy. What I used to be so familiar with has literally disappeared in front of my eyes. Being ruthless is part of human nature, so is being nostalgic. Even while all kinds of old things are being destroyed, we are irrepressibly reluctant to part with the past. I wonder whether architectural remains from past industrial times or life in the old lanes of Shanghai could be completely forgotten. But Memory City is about my personal memory of Shanghai—real, yet full of fantasy, and becoming fainter by the day. After being resorted, reordered, and recombined, those well-worn buildings in the photographs and my broken memories have been called back to life in an integral and centralized way, only to soon disappear again. These works are about the vanishing past, the ever-changing times, the insubstantial mirage, and the conflicts. I am trying to use Memory City as a wave farewell to that period of my personal memory.

Memories are easily lost here in Shanghai. From its start as a trading port in 1843, to the period of the Republic, the War of Resistance, the Liberation, and until the era of reform and opening-up, this city has been dropping memories, forgetting yesterday, forgetting profound people and things. This perhaps explains why this city is full of charm. Regardless of those splendid or dark days, everything is now gone, like clouds moving along. Shanghai forever belongs to the present and only today is served.

I don’t mean to call back those departed days, nor do I feel obsessed with reminiscences and sentimentality. Still, upon seeing certain scenes, I smell the elapsed times. It can be seen as a remembrance and honor to the past, to myself, and to the city, where I still live.

To no avail, mountains and waters have passed us by, leaving only the black-and-white. There is nothing to do but forget.