gab in china, again

Last tuesday, on what turned out to be the best day temperature and light wise of this week, Bert and Monica invited me to join them on their Line13 fieldtrip. A rare opportunity for me to explore less obvious sites of Beijing accompanied by the well-informed instead of being left to my own, misinterpreting, devices. On the movingcites site the looping line 13 entry gives an overview of the tour we took. Line13 is a subway line that stretches for 42 kilometers from the Eastgate to the Westgate of central Beijing, following a large semi-circular tracé heading northwards, past the 5th Ringroad. It takes you through areas of Beijing that are rapidly transforming from what would have been the outskirts of the city, into urban, suburban areas void of character. The transition is harsh. This phenomenon is much better described and researched by Movingcities, so read more here.

The tour took us through residential areas, in the midst of construction, filled with building activity, groups of migrant workers walking down the broad avenues like a cowboys in a western, shovels over their shoulders instead of rifles, hardhats, not stetsons, coming in to do their shift. An overturned truck amidst heaps of sand and dust looks like a flipped turtle, baring it’s vulnerable belly to the world. Later we walk through an area that is barren as a desert, except for the forest of electricity masts populating it. Construction is only just beginning here, presumably after deconstruction of the existing communities. Huge dust clouds is are being blown around by the heavy lorries driving through the area, the fine sand gets into my every pore. It truly is a desert, albeit an urban one, and swaddling oneself in turbans and headgear here would not be such a ridiculous idea. Then we pass through the living quarters of some migrant workers. Quarters that are provided by the construction companies. They are dire. Cheap materials, thin as cardboard with no insulation, are used to build the barracks, the ground around is dust and mud and filth. Peeking through a window reveals cramped quarters with bunk beds. It is hard to imagine that anyone sleeping here is protected from the winter cold.

Qianmen Street is situated in the Dazhalan neighborhood, immediately south of Tiananmen Square. It lies within that very meaningful north-south axis in Beijing which incorporates the Forbidden City and of course Tiananmen. (And now also the Olympic Park).
In 2004, when I first saw Qianmen, it was a bustling street with buses charging through it, many shops lining the east and west sides, their megaphones perched on the pavement blasting their bargains at no-one in particular. Cyclists with long sleeved gloves (it was august, very hot and therefor potential tanning weather – white skin being the the norm, long sleeved gloves ensured no tanning of the arms), squeezed between bus and tree lined pavements, and colourful signage ensured that no space was left empty. On each side, the grotty, lively alleyways of Dazhalan poured onto the main street.

Two years later, in 2006, I returned to find a very changed street. With the prospect of the upcoming Olympics, Qiamen Street was undergoing a complete overhaul. The buildings were empty, the shopfronts now half- obscured by advertising billboards. It looked like a ghost village on a film set. The alleyways were still full of activity, but the main street, except for the traffic still running through it, was already dead. The next year, 2007,  there were billboards in front of the earlier billboards, this time three times as high, almost completely obscuring the buildings behind them. And this time, instead of advertising, they were depicting what the new Qianmen Street was going to look like. A reconstruction of a historic version of the street, with a tramway running through it. A pedestrian street filled with happy shoppers (strangely all European looking), dwarfed by the buildings and other structures lining the street.

Now, in 2008, the street is more or less completed. The billboards are gone, revealing shops paces that are a hybrid of more or less generic commercial spaces on the ground floor, and replicas of the original building on top. No more charging traffic, it has become a pedestrian walkway, lined with street furniture referring to old Chinese tradition; lamps in the shape of birdcages, garbage bins modeled after drums, giant cauldrons filled with plastic flowers. The alleyways are all still there, but they are closed off from main street by rudimentary gates covered with prints, again depicting a rehashed version of historic Qianmen Street. Most of the shops are still vacant…as yet there is no hustle and bustle reminding me of the street as I first saw it in 2004, let alone the original street as it was way back in the 19th century. In fact it is so artificial, that it reminded me of the Truman Show. An association reinforced by the signs along the street pointing to the gates behind which the liveliness of the Dazhalan neighborhood continues: “Escape Route”. 
As if, when feeling stifled by the artificiality, one has an escape route back into reality, where there is life, smell and disorder.

Peeking through one of the escape routes,
where “real” life continues

>2007

>2007 - peeking through the gate

>2008

> 2006


> 2007


> 2008 

Having discovered the catalogue of Zhang Da last week, I also learned that the exhibition of his work was still open. Unfortunately, I had to rush through it, but I was happy to at least have the opportunity to see the clever exhibition design. On entering the large gallery space, you immediately see a white cube, seemingly without any way of getting in. The surface consists of a double layer of wide elastic strips, and you soon discover that the only way to get a look at the garments exhibited, is to pull aside the elastic, and “penetrate” the wall, which then closes (or snaps back) behind you. 

 >My foot penetrating the wall.

 >Looking down from the mezzanine

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Last week tuesday I finally managed to visit The Shop, a new project space initiated by Vitamin Creative Space. One of the features in the space is a corner they have called Facade. The idea is that selected Chinese artists and designers will be asked to donate some of their publications. This will lead to a growing “library” of Chinese visual culture that can be accessed and consulted by anyone who is interested. As The Shop only opened a month ago, the library is still very modest, but undoubtedly, when I return to BJ next year, it will have grown substantially. The first guests invited to contribute are the graphic design alliance MEWE. One of their publications that enchants me is a catalogue for the work of fashion-designer Zhang Da. The repetitive patterns throughout the brochure appeal to my pattern-addiction, and the simple yet very clever designs of Zhang Da (for instance the O-shirt, as a opposed to the T-shirt) equally appeal to my fashion tastebuds.