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untitledc-print, 24 x 30 inches, edition of 3

Urban Gaps (2013)
Photography and Space Production

The modernization of Chinese society produces images of fast pacing global cities. New buildings come along with the destruction of older areas. The demolition creates blank spaces, an urban wasteland of shredded bricks with traces of broken furniture, a chair, a curtain and plastic bags. In the background there is the horizon of newly erected high rise buildings. The wasteland is called short-term potential spaces ready for development and exists as a metaphor for fast-paced capitalism. The gaps in the urban environment are a kind of discrete sign for the hidden and obvious social gaps. The so-called socio-economic harmonization process of the society narrows the chances of space-seeking migrant workers. Real life chances are replaced by a simultaneous identification with prosperity. Next to the destroyed area there are still a couple of old buildings that are nearly ruined but still inhabited. The urban wasteland is a chaotic interruption in the continuity of the cities structure. Temporary urban wasteland can be considered as a model of a border zone in urban society. It is a zone between the past and the future, a sort of a blank space in the present. The marginal inhabitants of the area have no hope that their half-shattered homes will resist the brutal forces of the city’s reconfiguration.