This is my project on going which I started in 2015. It attempts to start from a community (my birthplace) in Tongren (my hometown), and gradually expand the collection of old data of this community to the new shooting of the city.

 

My parents are both teachers of a local vocational medical college. I was born and grew up here. After 2003, this school and other vocational schools merged into a comprehensive vocational college and moved to the outskirts of the city. The original land was then taken over and divided by other educational institutions, which would be destroyed in a few years.

 

In 1985, the state officially set September 10 as the statutory teachers' day. So since 1985, most of the staff of the school have gathered for a group photo on this day. I collected all the teachers' day photos before the merger from 1985 to 2003, as well as the old photos of relevant personnel or collectives. My work unfolds gradually through the collection of old memories and the recording of the current reality. For me, the change process of this community is also the epitome of China at present. The old reality is rapidly replaced by the new one, and we are forever in the gap between the old and the new, constructing the reality that we believe in in our own imagination.