Bai Xiaoci's massive photography and blog project, I Live Here is entirely contingent upon the city of Shenzhen and its inhabitants. He indiscriminately selects and then visits residents' houses to document them in amongst their property, often surrounded by their families. The artist is careful to label each one of the photographs with the subject's profession, ranging from a Dafen painter to a retired soldier to a property developer. Bai Xiaoci brings into the public realm, the private lives of Shenzhen dwellers and gives a human face to a city that many social commentaries deem inhumane. Each one of these people has travelled to Shenzhen to start a new life but we are forced to ask, are they at "home" in their surroundings?
Bai Xiaoci has to date been a focused study on the humanity behind the urbanization of China and development of Shenzhen. He believes that by accurately representing the way people live will contribute to a shift in governmental control from authoritarian communism to its own kind of liberalism. Bai has recently rented an apartment/workshop that he named 'Second Wife' in the city-village of Xia Sha in order to cross the line from being a distant observer to a participant in the lives of those who he photographs. The Xia Sha village within the city of Shenzhen is now made up of mostly working class migrants, however it is one of the oldest settlements in the city after being established in the 1970's by enterprising farmers. Bai Xiaoci hopes to continue his I Live Here project from here, to have an alternative perspective with the local people's trust and confidence.
Reported by Lara Luo
I Live Here One day in October 2006, through the camera lens of Bai xiaoci, a lonely seven-storey building stood precariously in the middle of a derelict site. The building, located in Caiwuwei, Shenzhen’s finance hub, was about to be demolished to make way for a new financial centre. Its owner, Mr. Cai Xiangzhu--the last one to hold out fighting back bulldozers--reached an agreement with the real estate developer. He had finally agreed to vacate and be relocated from
Photos of the solitary building have made headlines around the country, and on the Net the Cais have been dubbed “the hardest nail household in Shenzhen”. “Nail household” or “Nail House” (钉子户 Dingzihu) is the Chinese term for one who stubbornly refuses to vacate their home to make way for real estate development.
Several days before the Property Law came into effect, the Cais, after reaching an agreement with the real estate developer, started looking for a new place to live, with their “Nail House” finally going to be pulled down. Bai xiaoci, a web designer for a local media company in Shenzhen and a photographer during his spare time, had been granted permission by Mr. Cai to enter the solitary “Nail House” and take the last photos of it.
These photos are part of Shen’s photo album collection, entitled “I Live Here”, in turn part of the exhibit at the 2007 Shenzhen-Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture. The sheer volume of photographs includes images of white-collar lives in mortgaged houses, of the nouveau riche in their lakeside villas and of the underprivileged living in urban villages, showing the growing housing discrepancy and the true living conditions of high-speed urbanisation in Shenzhen.
In 1980, Caiwuwei was but a village and home to over 1,100 residents. The villagers had tilled the land for over three hundred years. They grew rice, sweet potatoes, sugarcanes and corn. Then came Deng Xiaoping’s call for the construction of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, and the irresistible force of urbanisation was thus launched, subsuming farmland to make way for roads, factory buildings and then skyscrapers. Caiwuwei was destined to become one of the first villages whose land was to be confiscated because of its central location in Luohu District, the first district to be developed for the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone.
After more than two decades of development, the greater Caiwuwei area is now the financial hub of Shenzhen and is home to a large number of the city’s banks and securities brokerage houses. Among the city’s skyscrapers were the “villages in the city”—tiny self-built residential towers, usually six to seven storeys high and standing in close quarters with other similar structures. These were very popular with white-collar workers because they provided cheap housing, were very near to offices and often afforded them a convenient and central location.
Under the 2005 Shenzhen Municipal Plan, Caiwuwei would be further developed for the expansion of Shenzhen’s “Wall Street”. Expansion plans included an 88-storey tower, an office building and six residential buildings. With an investment of over 3 billion RMB behind it, the redevelopment will cover an area of 47,000 square metres. The 88-storey tower will be the tallest in the city, overtaking the then current city landmark—the 384-metre Diwan Mansion, built in 1996 and at the time the highest in the city.
According to the Construction Bureau of Luohu District, the redevelopment of Caiwuwei began with the one-year-long work of pulling down 135 old buildings, of which 106 are self-built residential towers in the urban village, covering a total area of 148,500 square metres.
Between October 2005 and the end of 2006, the real estate developer tasked to work on Caiwuwei and the urban villagers had gone through tough disputes.
In October 2006, Bai xiaoci launched his project called “I Live Here”. The “Nail House” of Caiwuwei caught his attention. Shen subsequently contacted the Cais and successfully gained the permission of the owner to enter his home and take photos of it.
Though the agreement had already been signed, the Cais kept their home neat and tidy. Through Shen’s camera lens, Mr. Cai showed poise as he poured himself Kungfu Tea inside the very home at the centre of this debacle; nearby a bulldozer was roaring its engine in preparation for tearing down a vacated self-built building.
When Mr. Cai saw the flourishing pergola on top of the building, he suddenly felt a touch of nostalgia. He told Shen: “I am planning to set a marble table here. Then, when the Moon Festival arrives, we could enjoy the full moon here….”
According to Shen Xiaoming, the Cais might be the wealthiest among the Shenzhen families he has taken photos of. The family had its own residential building in one of the city’s most flourishing areas, where land prices are soaring ever higher. Mr. Cai and his family lived on the sixth floor and let out the rest of the property. The monthly rentals were more than sufficient to support the family to lead a well-off life even though the son was without a job. The Cais’ easy life took a turn for the worse when one day the bulldozer entered their village and approached their building, threatening the source of their living.
The very stubborn “Nail House” was finally vacated and bid its farewell to the world at the end of 2006, making way for a new 439-metre landmark tower. There had been much speculation on the Internet that the Cais received compensation of 17 million RMB, as the land price in the Caiwuwei area amounted to 20,000 RMB per square metre. That figure is yet to be confirmed.
Many people look at the Caiwuwei “Nail House” incident from a jural perspective, focusing either on the discrepancy between urban planning and the protection of citizen’s rights and interests or on the issue of the city’s sustainable development. But Bai xiaoci instead recorded the precious fragments of the city’s history, using no words but the “voices” of his own making.
At the beginning of 2008, when this interview was conducted, Shen has so far taken photos of over 150 households in Shenzhen. He intends to photograph 365 families living in the city.
