Pékin sans transition

Collaboration with Victoria Jonathan, Jérémie Descamps, Emiland Guillerme & France Culture
Date: 2012

“Pékin sans transition” is a web-documentary created on behalf of France Culture and directed by Victoria Jonathan. Based on seven photographs of the Beijing Silvermine archive, they created a temporal and spatial bridge between the past and the present.

《Pekin sans transition》是一部代表法国文化创作的网络纪录片，由维多利亚·乔纳森执导。基于北京银矿档案馆的七张照片，他们在过去和现在之间建立了一座时空桥梁。

In a period of only a few years, Beijing has undergone dramatic urban changes. Old areas have been knocked down, brand new skyscrapers have been erected, and other abandoned areas have been turned into new development areas. In sum, Beijing has been reshaping its own identity.
This web-documentary visualizes such transformations. It consists in juxtaposing seven photographs with their contemporary counterparts. That is to say, one image dates back to the 1980s-2000s whereas the other has been taken very recently. Rather than depicting random places, the images focus on pivotal landmarks within the city.
The overall goal is to ponder over a set of questions, such as what has been destroyed? Does destruction mean disappearance? Is it a sort of death of heritage? What has been built? Does this construction mean creation and novelty? Or rather the loss of cultural identity and forced alignment caused by globalisation? While reconstituting the city memory, this web-documentary offers an unusual portray of Beijing, the unceasingly changing city and its multiple faces.

在短短几年的时间里，北京的城市面貌发生了巨大的变化。老旧的地区被推到铲平，崭新的摩天大楼拔地而起，荒芜之地改造成新开发区。总之，北京一直在重塑自己的身份。
这部网络纪录片将这种转变形象化。它将七张照片与当下时代的照片并置。也就是说，一张照片源自到20世纪80年代至21世纪初，而另一张则是最近拍摄的。这些照片中不是随意拍摄的风景，而是聚焦于城市中的关键地标。
总的目标是对一系列问题进行思考，比如什么被摧毁了？破坏意味着消失吗? 这是遗产的消亡吗? 什么被建立了? 这种构造意味着创造和新奇吗? 或者更确切地说，是全球化导致的文化身份的丧失和被迫结盟? 在重塑城市记忆的同时，这部网络纪录片以不同寻常的方式展现了北京这个不断变化的城市及其多重面貌。