Olof

The people who appear in these pictures are, appropriately, wearing and carrying orange accessories. They are moving through their world in an absorbed way, through a continuum of everyday life. Primarily occupied with practical tasks, they are hardly aware that they also could be part of a bigger picture, a surreal vision perhaps.

In Summer 2006 I spent a two months in an artist residence in Peking as part of the artists program of the Red Gate Gallery and the IFA Institute.
The journey�s intention was a research of new conditions at other locations with the camera, as photography is the central medium of my art. Upon my arrival in China shot a series of photographs and videos. One focus in these works was the drastic economical change affecting the structure of everyday culture in China, particularly in�the metropolis Beijing.
A central project I developed on the base of my impressions in situ is the photo series Perfect Dream and Life. The title already signals that the ideologized agendas of a perfect life in Chinese society are impelled to rigid acts of realization. In its recent development China�s political leadership is transforming the historical outcome of Communism into a new State�s Capitalism, causing a structural change of global reach.�Numerous situations in the daily life of China symbolize this process which is based on an extreme exploitation of all resources, central to it human labor.�The individual human factor-turns into an unrecognized condition.
In reaction to my experiences in Beijing I decided to look for a motif�signifying this degree of abstraction and estrangement in urban social milieus.

Nathaniel

I started to photograph the construction sites in the city at night. Spread numerously�all over town they are indicators for the booming economy in China. With an extremely distilled style of observation these shots capture the new character of Beijing's cityscape. Through a long time exposure the pulsating light effects slowly dissolving into a deep black create the special quality of these shots of the city, in which an enigmatic dark atmosphere�fuses with a cold documentary style. There is a strong ambivalence between the visual attraction provoked by the sharp outline of the city lights�and a sense of anxiety these inanimate nightly scenes give. The disquieting mix of technocrat clarity and dark uncertainness is not only the central theme of this series but also characterizes the current state of Chinese everyday life.