20170712
Folk life • Dialect
- Images of Streets and Lanes by 13 Photographers
By Tang Haowu
Hutong, xiangzi and longtang are different terms for streets and lanes in China’s traditional residential areas, where the houses stands next to one another, doors against one another, and the sounds travels from one house to another. Old streets and small lanes act as the physical space of folk life culture as well as the public space of traditional ways of life. It is in the lane where people live generation after generation, performing earthly tragedy or comedy in life for thousands of years. Old streets are show stages of youth and vitality; lanes carry on the mentality of nostalgia of the migrant. Whether senior officers or rich businessmen returning hometown, or vendors drawing a trolley to feed on their family, all of them can feel the warmth and comfort via daily communication or sometimes just a gentle smile.
If dialect is a speaking identity card of people from different places over the country, then the folk life, consisting of hutong, xiangzi and longtang, is a physical form of dialect, containing different personalities and lifestyles. It is forgotten when shrewd businessmen demolished old streets and small lanes of one city and another for big transformation taking the excuse of for the good of the city. What they truly removed at the same time was the legacy of traditional folk life culture that passes on for thousands of years, the reflection of Chinese traditional customs and human society such as life, death, filial piety, benevolence, virtue and others. The transformation of the lanes and the subsequent disappearance make the unique charm of a city fade away, just like that the dialect is standardized into Mandarin and lost the all fun it shall have. People living in the matchbox-like residential area in cities as built from one model never say hello even to the neighbors; all of them are lost in the dilemma of high-rising mansions. Even if the material demands are met due to urban evolution, the sense of being a stranger and alienating to each other cannot be removed.
Old streets are getting older, folk life culture is vanishing, and dialect also seems hard to pass on. Although some elderly people choose to stay, more young people tend to leave. The remaining lanes are often reduced to mess and restlessness, destined to be standardized and commercialized, but the remaining streets and lanes have become the returning place for many people to reminiscence and recall with emotion.
I have no idea whether I should feel joyful that there are pictures showing streets and lanes and helping recall uptown life memory for us, or I should be sorry for that only these pictures can make “yesterday” once more. These images by 13 photographers from different cities invariably point the lens to the hidden side of the lanes, in the channels by which, the ordinary and fresh life in old streets and small lanes in different uptown areas are reflected. The collection and display of these images are not intended to allow the viewers to be immersed themselves in the literary fragments of the streets and lanes, but to think about: in this era of multi choices, everyone is directly or indirectly involved in rewriting the history of streets and lanes, and there is no way back; in face of the constant refreshing of the city, what kind of life do we really need? What kind of future do we really aspire?
Jul. 12, 2017
市井•方言
Folk life • Dialect ——13位摄影师的街巷影像联展 ——Images of Streets and Lanes by 13 Photographers
学术主持:鲍 昆
Academic Chair:Bao Kun
策 展:唐浩武
CURATOR: Tang Haowu
策展助理:杨学群
Assistant: Yang Xuequn
参展摄影师和作品:
陈亮《弄堂生活》
刘赤《征服》
卢承德《吴语浓》
谭秋民《家庭祭祀》
唐浩武《弄堂碎语》
吴凌云《坛上日常》
夏林海《看不见的厦门》
徐崇德《石阶路上的青岛》
许宝宽《张家口堡子里》
杨学群《巷愁》
俞亮《胡同影像》
郁胜文《武汉的巷子》
郑永辉《泊》
Names of Artists:
Chen Liang< Life in Longtang>
Liu Chi< Conquest>
Lu Chengde<Deep in the Wu Dialect>,
Tan Qiumin< Ancestor worship>
Tang Haowu< Thoughts in Jiangnan Longtang>
Wu Lingyun< Daily life in Tan >
Xia Linhai< The invisible Xiamen>
Xu Chongde< Qingdao on stoney steps>
Xu Baokuan< Buzili in Zhangjiakou>
Yang Xuequn< Lanesick>
Yu Liang< Images of Hutongs>
Yu Shengwen〈Wuhan alley〉
Zheng Yonghui< Adrift>
展览地点:山西省平遥古城柴油机厂A3展厅
Exhibition address: A3 exhibition hall, Diesel Engine Factory, Pingyao county, Shanxi Province
时 间:9月19日-25日
Time: September 19th-25th