By JIALEI TANG, 2/18/2016. This is not my hometown, it is the neighbor to mine. I discovered the richness of this place — its artisan culture, the architecture, the agricultural context, the list goes on.
As you can see from this Chinese documentary, the countryside allure of this village remains intact. However, it is also vulnerable to being “urbanized” blindly. Already, there is an industrial park project slated for this area. The strategic location of Shaxi Village has opened up new economical opportunities. Conveniently located in the Jieyang tripod of Jieyang, Chaozhou and Shantou, it is close to the Jieyang Airport which serves the three cities and the Chaoshan Railway Station.
The untapped potential of Shaxi is a double-edged sword. If the urban development is done without holistic consideration, the fragile cultural heritage may be collateral damage to make way for “modernization.”
This is the heart of my project— how can we reconsider urbanization? How can we grow a city? How should we nurture a village into a city? Fundamentally, what, ontologically, is a city?