{"id":2643,"date":"2024-02-12T16:38:04","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T15:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/urban-stories\/trip-to-the-east\/shanghai-roads\/"},"modified":"2024-02-17T17:06:18","modified_gmt":"2024-02-17T16:06:18","slug":"shanghai-roads","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/urban-stories\/trip-to-the-east\/shanghai-roads\/","title":{"rendered":"Shanghai Roads"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\">[vc_row][vc_column width=&#8221;1\/4&#8243;][vc_column_text css=&#8221;.vc_custom_1707820336076{margin-right: 50px !important;}&#8221;]Shanghai the eclectic. Shanghai XXL (extra-large). Sluggish beehive of almost thirty million inhabitants and thirty km in diameter. Techno-financial and fashionable midpoint of modern China. Divided exactly on half between cosmopolitan worldliness and ancestral practices; crowded with <em>kitsch<\/em> replicas of the symbolism of the envied Western modernity, which coexist with a more tarnished, implicit ideological symbolism. The economic capital of the People&#8217;s Republic amazed me more than any other megalopolis, I would say fascinated me.<\/p>\n<p>As much as can happen for a place that remains difficult to imagine beyond literature and anecdotes. An opportunity seized on with enormous curiosity and attraction, for a world that I would say is largely unknown, as well as incomprehensible, to us Westerners. We are the past; they are a modern mass turbo-technological society moving towards a future with somewhat disturbing aspects. This is the feeling I brought back.<\/p>\n<p>As it often happens to me, I started with a certain idea of a photographic project, which completely changed down in the field. It also happened to HCB, in 1948. He went there with a specific directive and dictated intentions. But his reportage became famous for something entirely different. There were some snapshots he came across while walking through the streets (<em>roads<\/em>) due to an unexpected event of historical significance (the<em>Gold Rush<\/em>\u201d: the race to the currency exchange among the <em>middle class<\/em> of the commercial metropolis at the time of the transition from the nationalist Kuomintang government to Mao Zedong&#8217;s People&#8217;s Republic of China).<\/p>\n<p>Thus, that initial, diligent idea of reportage dissolved, shattered to multiply, day after day, street by street, into a thousand surprising unexpected subjects: architecture, scenes and proscenium, circumstances and characters. Images taken blending among people, on its streets.<\/p>\n<p>So, testimony, story. Definitely street photography; of what, as I walk, intrigues me more, for the aesthetics, for the amazement and uniqueness of what has never been seen before. Facts that are \u00ab&#8230; <em>expressed precisely in external episodes, in other words road episodes<\/em>\u00bb (GBG).[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=&#8221;16px&#8221;][vc_btn title=&#8221;Back&#8221; color=&#8221;black&#8221; size=&#8221;sm&#8221; i_icon_fontawesome=&#8221;fas fa-arrow-alt-circle-left&#8221; add_icon=&#8221;true&#8221; link=&#8221;url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.andreacalestani.it%2Fen%2Furban-stories%2Ftrip-to-the-east%2F|title:Trip%20to%20the%20East|&#8221;][\/vc_column][vc_column width=&#8221;3\/4&#8243;][vc_masonry_media_grid grid_id=&#8221;vc_gid:1707832259383-a8b2defbe75e3af8504612195f0de0ff-9&#8243; css=&#8221;.vc_custom_1707819605867{border-top-width: 3px !important;border-right-width: 3px !important;border-bottom-width: 3px !important;border-left-width: 3px !important;border-left-color: #ffffff !important;border-left-style: initial !important;border-right-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-style: initial !important;border-top-color: #ffffff !important;border-top-style: initial !important;border-bottom-color: #ffffff !important;border-bottom-style: initial !important;}&#8221; include=&#8221;2591,2593,2595,2597,2599,2601,2603,2605,2607,2609,2611,2613,2615,2617,2619,2621,2623,2625,2627,2629,2631,2633,2635,2637,2639,2589&#8243;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column width=&#8221;1\/4&#8243;][vc_column_text css=&#8221;.vc_custom_1707820336076{margin-right: 50px !important;}&#8221;]Shanghai the eclectic. Shanghai XXL (extra-large). Sluggish beehive of almost thirty&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2476,"parent":2530,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2643","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2643\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacalestani.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}