An Era Without Memories: Chinese Contemporary Photography on Urban Transformation

An exceptional collection of photographs by contemporary Chinese artists responding to the urbanization of their country

This brave and beautiful compendium of reflections on urban transformation is a must-have for photography aficionados and anyone with an interest in China or contemporary culture.

Through the work of some of the country’s most talented art photographers, this book explores the unprecedented urbanization of China, offering up histories now being destroyed and futures now being invented.

Four chapters each feature incisive explanatory text by Jiang Jiehong. The photographers showcase their responses to urbanization using a wide variety of approaches, whether Miao Xiaochun’s photograph of a vast glass building rising like a UFO behind a traditional old neighbourhood; Wang Jinsong’s collages of the Chinese character scrawled on buildings to mark them out as condemned; Zhang Peili’s records of pastiche Western architecture; Xu Zhengqin’s street hoardings showing dream residential and commercial developments; or Wang Chuan’s poetic images of abandoned, half-finished modern buildings.