Slide projection and one large pile of shredded photographs scattered on the floor
Part of Container Culture (Beijing)
Curated by Zhang Ga

Xing DanWen seeks to sketch a visual representation of modernity in the 21st century. She carefully chooses direct and intimate moments to portray the objects that she finds. Since the summer of 2002, she has traveled several times to South China's Guangdong Province, one of the most developed areas in the country. Along the coast, more than 100,000 people from Guangdong and migrant workers from Western China make their living by recycling piles of computer and electronic trash, operating in rough environment and social conditions. This huge amount of e-trash is shipped from industrialized countries - Japan, South Korea and mostly from the United States, and dumped here.

We are in an information and communication era, and rely extensively on these high-tech facilities for our modern life. These machines become deeply rooted in our daily activities, replacing the old ways of doing things. Millions of newly purchased products follow on millions of trashed ones. Confronted with vast piles of dead and deconstructed machines, the overwhelming number of cords, wires, chips and parts, with the clear indication of the company logos, model numbers and even individual employees, This deeply shocked Xing Danwen

Modernization and globalization shape urban development. In China, she has experienced and witnessed the changes that have taken place under the influence of Western modernity. These changes have contributed to a strong and powerful push for development in China, but at the same time they have led to major environmental problems and social inequality in remote corners of China.

This body of work has more than 40 images, titled disCONNEXION. Each individual image has no subtitle but identified with numbers. The photographs are chromogenic color prints.