Between 2016 and 2019, I photographed Shanghai during a period of relentless transformation. The city evolves at such speed that returning to the same location rarely means seeing the same place. Streets vanish, skylines rise, and entire districts are redrawn within months. The North Bund has become a corridor of glass and light, while Pudong continues its vertical ascent, reflecting the city’s ambition to redefine itself again and again.
Yet beneath this surge of modernity, traces of the old Shanghai remain. In the early morning haze, tai chi practitioners move slowly along the Bund, their gestures echoing the rhythm of the river. In half-demolished lane houses, mahjong games persist, and the familiar scent of tea drifts from courtyards untouched by time.
Shanghai lives in tension between erasure and endurance — a city shedding its skin while refusing to forget what lies beneath. Photographing it felt like capturing a moving target, a brief intersection of memory, speed, and transformation.
