我把梁思聪的英文访谈原稿也发上来，作为外部搜索备份。
The interview is orgianlly published on Shanghai Xintiandi Zing Magazine, January 2008
Interviewer / Jeuce Photo / Sze Tsung Leong, Courtesy of Yossi Milo Gallery
1. Leong,
we know that you are brought up in Mexico, with parents from England and
Malaysia, having British and now American citizenship, and being of Chinese
ancestry - with all the culture diversity in your personal past, what makes you
photographing China at the start?
The reason
was actually very simple, which was that I wanted to see and understand the
country and culture a bit better. Having grown up in many places and cultures
has made travelling very important to me, and now this experience of
connections and interrelationships between places is an important part of my
current work.
There was
also a more specific reason to photograph China, which had to do with seeing a
significant period in China's history, which was really the end of a period of
its history. The first time I went to Beijing was in 1994, and I did not visit
again until 2001. By my second visit, little of what I saw in 1994 was left--many
of the old neighborhoods, the streets, the majestic trees--had disappeared. I
thought it would be important to witness and understand what was happening.
2. What do
you feel about the undergoing urbanization movement and the new enclosure
movement, specifically the the context of the Chinese cities you photographed?
There's an
incredible value to modernization, but it's vital that it be considered in
relation to what exists, especially in a richly layered historical context like
China's. In the majority of cases this has not been the case there. In China,
modernization tends to be carried out for economic reasons, for the sake of
immediate conveniences, and for making the environment suitable to modern life.
But often the cultural value is ignored, which is why so much of the original
city and its history have been destroyed.
3. The
History Images Series, in the form of cities in China, reveals the process of
the old Chinese cities being vanished or refurbished. Why is it important for
you to record such moments in history?
Images,
even though smaller and infinitely more fragile than actual buildings that are
made of durable materials, can, paradoxically, often be more longlasting. Buildings
in China are especially vulnerable, and I've attempted to depict that fragile
and fleeting moment when one history is being destroyed and another is being
built. The image gives this period some degree of permanence. One of my goals
is to give people the opportunity, through looking at my images, to reflect on
what this all means.
4. You've
taken enormous numbers of Chinese cityscapes in almost a standardized format,
which it's astonishing. Can you talk a little about this process? How do you
find and access the locations in the photography? Moreover, how do you
negotiate with the locals in order to take the images?
When I am
photographing cities, I try to find vantage points that will give as much
visual information as possible. I also try to find viewpoints and compositions
that will create relationships from city to city. I find it's important to work
with some consistent elements in the photographs, such as composition,
viewpoint, and lighting, so that the relationships and differences between
places are made more apparent.
To find
these vantage points I often start with a lot of walking, which is one of the
best ways to understand a city. Cities are not as impenetrable as it may seem. Having
lived in Los Angeles, for example, helped me tremendously in getting a grasp on
Beijing, while having grown up in Mexico City made Cairo, where I was recently
photographing, strangely familiar. In China, I was also fortunate to know some
very capable and intelligent people, who were invaluable in helping me access
locations and to talk with people and explain what I was doing. In the
traditional neighborhoods, I found the residents incredibly welcoming and
helpful, despite the incredibly difficult situations they were in because of
the destruction of their homes.
5. Do you
think your photographs emblematic of the bubble economy and the imbalance
between the rich and poor in China? Right now, everybody in China is talking
about the growth, the Olympics, the stock market, the rising house price, the
goals... What is your view on this chaos as an outsider? Are these things
healthy?
Many of the
photographs in "History Images" show the replacement of one type of
urban fabric with another, which inevitably shows the replacement of one class
of society with another. The traditional neighborhoods, because of official and
cultural neglect, have often become homes for poorer people, while the new buildings,
because of their expense, are designed to house the middle and upper classes. Because
the traditional neighborhoods have been seen by authorities and developers as "dangerous"
and "dilapidated," their cultural value is forgotten and they are
seen as disposable. The poorer inhabitants in turn have to move farther and
farther out, where they are less visible. While the redesigning of the country
is undoubtedly improving many people's lives, in many cases it is used as a
slick, acceptable face that puts less palatable things out of view.
