Talking with Ruins:
footage of "texts" in a demolishing lane
Hongkou District, as a relatively late urban renewal area in Shanghai, has a large number of dilapidated lane communities that are being demolished. Gong'an Lane is one of them. With the persuasion of government, residents moved out from their old houses and moved to the suburbs to start a new life.
AT THE END OF AN ALLEY
a-"Evaluate"
The government will compensate the value of the demolished houses and needs
to be evaluated in advance.
b-"No.68"
The house number of in lane community is different at front gate and back
gate. Here is the doorplate of the front door.
c-"Guangming fresh milk"
Guangming (Bright Dairy & Food Co., Ltd.) is a famous local milk
brand in Shanghai, and many residents choose to order milk from this company.
ON A RESIDENT'S GATE
d-"House 39, Lane 850, Zhoujiazui Road"
The entire Lane 850 community is under
demolition,
and these house numbers will no longer exist.
e-"mailbox"
In fact, this household does not have a physical mailbox. The so-called
"mailbox" is just a gap between two wooden panels of the gate. Residents marked the gap in
mint
green paint to remind the postman to deliver.
UNOFFICAL BULLETIN WALL
f-"rat poison drop-off point"
The aging buildings and narrow spaces in the lane
community make it easy for rats, cockroaches and other pests to breed here. Therefore, the
government has specially set up points to regularly release rat poison.
g-"masterplan of 850 Lane"
The space in the lane community is narrow and complicated. If
you are not a long-term resident, it is easy to get lost here. Although the floor plan is
presented on the bulletin board, it is still difficult to actually find it.
h-"hand-washing area"
In lanes, many residents do not have their own toilets. In order
to improve the quality of living for residents as well as publich health, the neighborhood
committee has set up plastic buckets and detergents for hand washing in the public spaces of
the community.
i-"recyclables waste & hazardous waste"
Waste classification is one of the public
policies that the Shanghai Municipal Government has vigorously promoted in recent years.
Even in lanes where life is inconvenient, such a policy must be implemented. Many different
classified trash cans are placed in the narrow lanes of the community.
j-"unreadable handwriting containing the words moon and
loneliness"
Lanes are often
located in the old city, in the center of Shanghai. Therefore, compared with surrounding
modern communities, the rents are more affordable here, allowing many migrant workers to
move in. This unreadable handwriting may have been written by a worker who missed his
hometown in a longly night.
Novel of Triviality:
collection and analysis of abandoned texts
I walked throughout the whole Gong'an Lane, looking for abandoned texts, captured and recorded them with photography. From these hundreds of photos, we can arranged and classified them into eight different categories. The occurrence of each category of texts has its own historical and social background, and also plays its own role in the daily life of lane residents.
A
[announcement]
B
[warning]
C
[blessing]
D
[product name]
E
[proposal]
F
[box]
G
[advertisement]
H
[identity]
CATEGORIES OF TEXTS
A-[announcement]
It is usually a notice issued by the government to inform newly implemented policies,
such
as garbage classification, water outage, water bill payment, etc. Some are left by broadband
companies and real estate developers.
B-[warning]
"Be careful of electric shock", "No touching on poisons", "monitored by security
system",
these horrifying words remind residents to pay attention to their behaviors.
C-[blessing]
During the Chinese New Year, there is a custom of posting couplets and blessing
characters
on the doors. Therefore, even if the residents have moved away, the blessings they posted
during the previous Spring Festival have remained.
D-[product name]
Among the ruins, you can also find many daily necessities used by residents, such as
Zhenjiang balsamic vinegar for seasoning, Nestlé's instant coffee, and the untorn protective
film on the aluminum windows. These words show the trace of the daily life here.
E-[proposal]
Different from announcements or warnings, these words are not commands, but raise
expectations to residents and advocate a more harmonious, clean and safe living
environment.
Since many residents raised objections during the lane demolition process, much of the
content in the proposal, posted by the government, was about moving out of the community
and
moving into new homes.
F-[boxes]
Unlike high-rise modern communities with modern infrastructure systems, the public
spaces
and private rooms in lanes are only separated by a wall. Therefore, various "boxes" play
an
important role in residents' lives. Boxes for milk bottles, flayers, complaint letters,
broadband, and electricity are all displayed on the facade of the building.
G-[advertisement]
On the shabby walls of the house, the most common texts are various unofficial
advertisements. Some of them are legitimate business promotions for air conditioning
repairs
or hairdressing, some are illegal activities including application for fake documents or
cheating tricks in playing cards, and other are in a delicate state between the private
business and the government advocation for new houses and community or recycling of old
furnitures. These advertisements are posted onc against another on the wall, overlapping
with each other and suggesting endless stories here.
H-[number]
Undoubtedly, more common than advertisements are "numbers" among all the texts in
lane. The
reasons are simple: for residents, as houses that were once home for one family are
being
divided, the boundaries between families blurred, requiring constant emphasis to
distinguish
them; for government, infrastructure system are quite choatic here, requiring to be
mananged
with numbers. And among the numbers, some are doorplates on residents' gate, and some
are
marks for public lighting. Interestingly, even for the same numbering system, their
tablets
are different in appearances, illustrating the long history of the community.