My photographs explore the relationship between urban environments and the individuals that inhabit these spaces. This body of work comes from my recent one-month visit to China, where mass rural-to-urban migration has snowballed into dramatic changes for its cities. What was once a state-controlled political system now caters to the liberal flow of capital exchange, and people are scrambling to adjust to ‘capitalism with Chinese characteristics.’ I have tried to document these transitions by exploring the psychological effects as I understand them by pointing my lens on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai.

In the early part of the 20th Century, Mao’s policies forced millions to move from cities to villages where they lived under strict ideology and worked hard to ward off starvation. In the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping enticed labor back to the cities and real estate boomed. Economic growth and stability fed the lure of abundance and consumerism. Along with life’s basic needs, Chinese people want luxury goods. Life in the fast lane is a way of survival for many in what has become a competitive race to create a New East.

Born in 1979, I grew up in between Taiwan and the US. Staying in China for me mixed familiarity with surprise. These images are incomplete. I am a silent voyeur on the surface of a mass historic change, a phenomenon that perhaps only an audience can bring awareness to. I use outdated photo paper and print in high contrast to create a feel that parallels the historic remnants and ongoing transformation of a society awakening to a mixture of dreams and nightmares. In these ambiguous fields shall my studies further dwell.

Wayne Liu is a photographer living in New York. He is currently editing and printing new photographs from his second trip to China, part of an ongoing exploration called, “China, You are a Luck Star.” An exhibition of this work was shown at Chelsea Market, New York, in 2008, and excerpts were published both in Foam Magazine (Amsterdam) and Eyemazing (Amsterdam) in 2008. On the side, he has shot fashion and a music slideshow

Copyright Last Exit 2009