SOHIE

NEW MORNING

China, 2007

I went to Tian’an Men with the belief that I would find traces of its loaded past

 

I arrived on the square

its vastness losing all expression of emotion, space or time

an endless plane of nothingness

a lost sense of historic consciousness

The long exposures of photographs slowly revealed another sense

another lens of seeing

of forgone generations

shining through a foreground as voices and scribbles of light

were washed away by the eroding seas of time

Giant floodlights were positioned along Tian’an Men to illuminate

the spectacle of the People’s Red Forces

accentuating an all-pervading sense of uncertain transition

their sentinel light transforming the square into a wonderland colourfully inhabited

Would they have recognised the same feeling of “otherness” as I felt

while wading through their colourful masses?

or is it just perfectly natural to pose in front of the Leader and smile into the camera?

Blue skies no longer exist

a brown silver haze merges past and future into a skyline that softens the wounds of an old world

the emerging night presents an apocalyptic glow

the whispering shadows of construction-workers dance in the blinding light of the new ruins

vibrant shop windows bring cheap comfort and reassurance pouring their intoxicating magic

into the ancient guts of Beijing

The once forbidden city knows in silence