Shanghai
In 2005 four female photographers decided to travel to China and follow their curiosity. Our destination Shanghai, where we all focused on different aspects of this immense city. During the month I explored the fringes of the city by taking all possible end-stations of the subways system. Observing the city from different areas and traveling from outside-in, confronted me with an extreme haste in (re)building this city. Sometimes it was even difficult for me to recognize if buildings where being destroyed or almost finished. All four of us found ourselves in a fascinating fast-forward China where nobody seemed to complain as there is no time for.

karin krijgsman

petra stavast

hanneke treffers

magazine: fw # 5 create happiness

“Why would eight photographers independently go to China? It is supposed to be happening there. Taking pictures is a ‘happiness drug’. Maybe this counts extra for doing so in a city as Shanghai, a place where much is happening, as it seems. There is a daily rush in the streets and a high speed of acting. Constructing sites emerge everywhere around you, same as the dust. You may realize that few new things happen at the same time. All that surrounds you, you have seen before somewhere else. Only not in this haste, speed and multiplicity. Shanghai is a city where reality makes you dizzy; this dizziness can be like a dream. As a contemporary citizen of Shanghai you constantly switch between luxurious living, only if you are a foreigner, and the hard reality of the day, between all you know and all that is strange. The feeling rises that all that looks familiar has lost its meaning in this place. In fact it is in front of you and real but as an empty shell, it is only a point of recognition.” (text: Karin Krijgsman)