TOFUD # Chongqing | BangBang
Who is the megapolis actually being built for?
I see building as a cultural activity and a phenomenon with a strong driving –force, with a thriving and sometimes devastating affect on our environment. What’s the affect to the direct environment and to the planet as a whole? How do we deal with that? And what will our build structures look like when we keep on building like this for one or two more centuries? A glimpse of an answer I find in the fast growing mega cities. There you can see and feel what direction we are heading towards and what the affect will be on the long term if we keep on building our concrete environments.
In my practice I’m always interested how and what individuals build and what the consequences are when millions of people build the same time? Chongqing has become a mega-polis with around 30 million inhabitants, one of the largest urban areas in the world and therefore is perfect study case for my TOFUD project.
year: 2016
location: Chongqing, China
dimension: 220 x 180 x 75 cm
material: plywood, square timber, black paint
exhibition: Frank Havermans + Gum Cheng
August 14 – August 28
venue: Organhaus
curator: Yang Shu
artist in residence: June – August
photography: © Carlo Antoni
special thanks to: Ni Kun, Wen Wei
supporterd by: Organhaus
PUBLICATIONS
View on Chongqing
Due to the lack of city maps I made a spatial model of Chongqing, an attempt to try and understand the megapole.
In Chongqing, China’s fastest growing city, BangBang men are a quintessential and unique phenomenon. They wait in groups, often in sweltering heat with bamboo sticks and ropes, for lugging jobs in this mountainous city to transport all kind of things to locations where cars cannot reach.
Inexpensive and efficient, they literally take the renewed modern city to the next level. They are indispensable in the growing prospect. Who is this megapolis actually being built for?
BangBang in Chongqing
BangBang in Chongqing
BangBang stick – models
BangBang performance
BangBang men are a quintessential and unique phenomenon in Chongqing, China’s fastest growing city. They wait in groups, often in sweltering heat with bamboo sticks and ropes, for lugging jobs in this mountainous city to transport all kinds of things to locations where cars cannot reach.
Inexpensive an efficient, they literally take the renewed modern city to the next level. They are indispensable in the growing prospect.
Who is this mega polis actually built for?
In a performance two BangBang men carry the Chongqing model based on the BangBang carry methode in the centre of the mega polis and in the white space of the gallery. That performance is framed in 5 photo’s.