Playing to Win

Zhang Xiaowu grew up and has lived his whole life in Rui’an, where he works as a full-time art teacher and a part-time documentary photographer. Located in China’s eastern coastal Zhejiang province, Rui’an used to be predominantly rural. In 1987, as the Reform and Opening policy was taking hold, China’s State Council redesignated the county a “county-level city.” In the years since, consecutive waves of rapid urbanization have swept through the area. Industrial and commercial projects gobbled up farmland. And Zhang, born in 1972, witnessed it all.

In 2009, he became interested in trying to depict the changes in his hometown, a place that was deeply familiar and yet had become alienating—a “non-urban non-rural hybrid” where consumerism was wiping out tradition. “The modern countryside is like a giant randomly assembled machine, overloaded and rattling wildly.” He found himself drawn to making images of recreation, the moments when, as he saw it, newly acquired wealth sated longstanding desires.

One month ago, Zhang lost his ancestral home to a demolition crew. The last anchor of his childhood memories was gone. “Photography is a way for me to understand what is happening to this land. I am not passing judgement about what is right or wrong, good or bad . . .My hometown is a place I can neither return to nor leave behind.”

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