06. 05. 2025 – 29. 06. 2026
These images were made over the course of five academic visits to China spanning thirty-five years, although the majority date from the eighties. They reflect implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, the immense changes in Chinese society over this period. In 1983, Beijing boasted wide streets but only the rare, official car to take advantage of them. Bicycles dominated, long, wide streams of them, a chorus of dingling bells. People lived in close proximity, either in small compact neighbourhoods, constantly surveyed, or in narrow alleys (hutongs).
Changes were already clearly visible in 1989. For instance, a Nanjing hutong I had visited in 1983 had been demolished and a new housing complex was under construction. By 2010, apartment blocks, frequently unsold and unoccupied, were shooting up everywhere like mushrooms, heralding the construction crisis of 2021.
Adrian Bondy