Between 2002 and
2005, Sze Tsung Leong created the series History
Images, photographing cities throughout China—including Beijing, Shanghai,
Chongqing, Nanjing, Pingyao, and Xiamen—to show “the dramatic urban changes
that have transformed the cities [over the last 100 years]—revealing a process
that ranges from the destruction of traditional neighborhoods to the
construction of new urban environments.”

 

Sze Tsung Leong’s large color photograph Xinjiekou, Xuanwu District, Nanjing
(2004) from the series visualizes the dramatic changes in the city’s central
district, revealing three periods of China’s history reflected in the existing
buildings, layered like geological strata: 1) the ruins of vernacular houses
dating from the imperial period, 2) partially demolished collective apartment
housing blocks from the Communist period, and 3) new office and residential
towers from the latest, capitalist period that stand high. Not including any
human figure, the photograph portrays “the dense sedimentation of history,”
says the artist, that is, the erasure of a past history and the creation of a
new history that will unfold on top of it.