Seen/Unseen: The Migrant Children centers on observing and documenting migrant workers and their children in Beijing - a highly marginalized and underrepresented community from less developed areas around China that temporarily comes to urban centers for better employment and education opportunities. This project was created during my voluntary service for a charity group in two migrant villages where migrant workers and their children resided in the suburb of Beijing. I recruited a group of migrant children, teaching them photography while providing them with disposable film cameras, and we continued this collaboration where they turned the lenses to record their lives in Beijing.
The work consists of two visual parts: portraits of the migrant children taken by me as deadpan observations on them and their harsh living conditions; candid and intimate snapshots (click on the portrait images) taken by the children using cameras I gave them, reveling incredibly in-depth and vivid observations from the perspectives of the true insiders. The portraits and snapshots contextualize each other and intricately display an intrinsic atmosphere and feelings of their daily life. Meanwhile, there are handwritten notes from the children indicating their experiences living in both Beijing and their hometowns.
This project transfers the discourse power and subverts the traditional subject-object relationship, showing the seen and the unseen in the lives of the migrant children. With the fast and abrupt development of the economy of China, they may be beneficiaries in some ways but are also the victims. The displacement and alienation of the migrant people community result in their complicated social and living conditions and states of mind that bring them both dilemma and contentment simultaneously. Those aftermaths in different layers reflect the complexity of China’s current rapid urbanization.
Click on the portrait images for more stories from the children
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Handwriting by Zhang Ziyue: Hometown is fun. I can hold my niece and play with her. There are many brothers and sisters who like me. Beijing is not fun, not as good as hometown. Because it is so boring to be away from my sisters.
Handwriting by Song Shuo: I feel bored. Lonely. School is boring.
Handwriting by Zhang Rong: It's not good here, I eat and drink a lot everyday, can not feel the happiness of a kid living in mountains. It's hard to walk on the sinuous paths in my hometown, but it feels happy to smell the sweet scent of fruit in fall.
Handwriting by Wu Jinge: Beijing is interesting. I feel carefree here. I play with my friends everyday. My parents are very considerate. I feel lonely in hometown because my brothers and friends don't play with me.
Handwriting by Li Wenwen: Hometown: tough, happy. Beijing: boring, relaxed.
Handwriting by Zou Wanhui: School life is fun. I have good time. I go to school with good friends everyday. We share good stuff and we also share knowledge learned at school. I will study even harder in the future .
Handwriting by Zhang Ao: Beijing is very good, just that the environment is too bad. I had a good time in hometown. Every year I went back there, I would collect corns and catch fish in rivers with my friends.
Seen/Unseen: The Migrant Children, Installation View, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China