PostArt # 67 – Greetings from China

Shenzhen, China – October 26, 2018

Dear Art Photo Friend

Greetings from Shenzhen in southern China, one of the most dynamic cities on earth.

In 1980, a small coastal village that then-President Deng Xiaoping declared the first Chinese economic free zone. Today between 15 and 20 million inhabitants and China’s leading high tech hub – but also with lovely parks, trees everywhere, lakes, theme parks, art galleries, an oil painters’ village, a Silk Village and much much more…I’ve just started my 4th week here – after Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guyiang, Xinguyi, and Xian. Every city and province is a world of its own in this highly diverse country.

 

 

I’ve seen so many art galleries, spaces, artists’ quarters, seen rich museums – such as the China Silk Museum in Hangzhou – and met artists of different schools and traditions.

So far it’s been totally overwhelming also because I have met so much openness, kindness and generosity here and because everybody is a happy connector to somebody else. Very very important for my SPAR project – see below.

Above with my new artist friend in Xi’an, Wang Chang Lin who, when he heard about my project, created this calligraphy about Silk Road, made for me.

It is 35 years ago, in 1983, I was in China last. That was five years after the opening-up policy was introduced by Deng Xiaoping in December 1978. I was part of a Danish friendship delegation, traveling around over 16 days. At the time, there was no digitalization, so I used my new simple DSLR with Kodachrome films for slides – and took mostly snapshots.

Before I begin to publish images from my present trip, you may get an impression of China back then.

 

Everything is explained in the intro to this new portfolio “China 1983” – also why the photos look like they do.

China’s development over such short a time in a world-history perspective is deeply impressive. Mind-boggling. And good for the world. It has lifted about 500 million people out of poverty in just 20 years. Nowhere done before in human history.

China challenges. If you are open to it, it challenges a lot of what we in the Western corner of the world for far too long have believed and propagated as the only right way to think.

The Chinese cherish eclecticism and walk on many legs. It seems to have been a smart way of thinking…

More to come – also more photos to come in this Portfolio!

My best
Jan Oberg