Sue Anne Tay’s Construct, Demolish, Repeat: Building the Shanghai Dream

I don’t remember where I first came across Sue Anne Tay’s photographs of Shanghai demolition and destruction but they instantly struck me as poignant. I’ve posted about them before and received the inevitable emails about the benefit of slum clearance etc etc which always strikes me as naive and ahistorical and ignores how so many buildings became slums in Shanghai through state and purposeful official neglect.

Anyway, I’m also jealous of Sue Anne Tay as I’ve been snapping construction sites, demolition and threatened heritage in Shanghai and elsewhere for years and my photographs are functional (at very best) and usually just crap. I just don’t have the eye for photography in the same way as I can’t draw. She does have an eye clearly.

And now there’s an exhibition of her work in Shanghai hosted by the good folk at Southern Barbarian (who’ve also hosted friends of mine including the photographer Andre Eichmann and North Korea poster collector Nick Bonner). The exhibition is opening this Saturday and if you’re in Shanghai you can go see it and sample some of Southern Barbarian’s huge range of beers.

To see some examples of Sue Anne Tay’s work have a look here

Construct, Demolish, Repeat: Building the Shanghai Dream

Where: Southern Barbarian | Rm. B9, DBS Building, 1318 Lujiazui Huan Lu, Pudong Dark Side

When: Starting this Saturday, September 11 through the end of October.

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