In the late summer of 2016, I spent six weeks in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region where I documented the transformation of some of the most influential cities in the region: Ordos, Hohhot, and Baotou. While looking back on the images I had taken, I was unexpectedly reminded of post-war Italian cinema in which the images had shared a common theme of booming developments occurring in the historic cities of Italy.
The shocking similarity between images 50 years apart testify to a dominant, globalized, and normalized character of these settlement processes. There is a common denominator, which seems to cancel the geography and the temporal distance between the events told by my visual-journey. The gaze moves in silent and mysterious places that seem to push the viewer beyond the empirical evidence towards an almost dreamlike dimension, or a “post dream” scenario.
The Post-War Dream / A visual journey into the Anthropocene
by Alessandro Zanoni
In collaboration with: Steve Bisson of Urbanautica Institute
Officine Creative Italiane, Perugia, Italy
Presentation event: January 9, 2020
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