The Vanishing Hutongs
September, 2021
Once being the fertile sites for cultural innovation and gentrification in the last decade, Beijing Hutongs are demolished to make way for new city planning in recent years. The Vanishing Hutongs is a short video documenting the origin of each remaining hutong, selecting six to focus on, and depicting individual’s connections and collective memory in consequence of urbanization. This is captured through the layering of sound and voice, photography, and my practice of water calligraphy on the wall of these hutongs.
The process of writing on hutongs’ wall attracts residents and visitors to stop and watch the texts as well as reveal their personal connections to each hutong’s origin. Mimicking the fleeting moments of everything that has happened throughout hutongs, it aims to show how the cultural memory being layered, deteriorate, forgotten over time in hutongs.
The Vanishing Hutongs
September, 2021
Once being the fertile sites for cultural innovation and gentrification in the last decade, Beijing Hutongs are demolished to make way for new city planning in recent years. The Vanishing Hutongs is a short video documenting the origin of each remaining hutong, selecting six to focus on, and depicting individual’s connections and collective memory in consequence of urbanization. This is captured through the layering of sound and voice, photography, and my practice of water calligraphy on the wall of these hutongs.
The process of writing on hutongs’ wall attracts residents and visitors to stop and watch the texts as well as reveal their personal connections to each hutong’s origin. Mimicking the fleeting moments of everything that has happened throughout hutongs, it aims to show how the cultural memory being layered, deteriorate, forgotten over time in hutongs.