WANG KEYAO | GAZING THE MILL FACTORY
Xi’an Dahua Cotton Mill was the earliest modern textile factory established in Northwest China in the 1930s. The factory went through most of the most significant events of the Chinese ancient capital’s modern history; its walls are traces and witnesses of the past. The factory had nearly eighty years of production history before it was abandoned in 2008.
From 2011 to 2014, while I was participating in the factory’s renovation design process, I had the opportunity to walk through every place and corner of this factory countless times.
Through my eyes of both architect and photographer, I kept on gazing at this vast industrial complex, collected memories, traces of the locus, and snapped brief scenes which would no longer occur during the metamorphosis of the construction site.
This film’s photography series is the result of these three years of intense documentation of the factory.
Gazing the factory through the lenses of my cameras, discovering its past, and documenting its present and transformation was a very personal experience that definitely impacted my architectural approach to renovation and design.
By understanding the past and feeling the soul of the place, the design could focus on preserving more historical context, atmospheres, and details from the past.
WANG KEYAO
Wang Keyao is an architect and photographer, co-Founder of Zhijian Workshop, a multi-disciplinary design and art studio based in China, France, and Germany.
“Zhijian,” in Chinese, has different meanings, one of them is “Between,” and another one is “Interlaced space.” Therefore, he is also engaged in photography and art practices in parallel with his architectural design works.
On the one hand, between design and photography, Wang Keyao designs spaces for people to use. On the other hand, he observes how people’s stories unfold in their surrounding spaces and environment. In this two-way process, Wang Keyao’s works focus on interlaces between traces of the city and memories from people’s lives.
Since 2010, he has been using black & white films for many of his long-term series in fine art photography and architectural photography. One of these photography series, “Throwing stones for directions,” was selected for the 12th China Pingyao International Photography Exhibition in 2012 and entered the Top 10 Youth Photographers Sponsorship Award at the same time.
Keyao is currently focusing on one theme: “Traces of the city,” which is Zhijian Workshop’s long-term project related to design, photography, and art.
