Panic on the underground
(Shops underground: Shanghai, China)
Sorry for not posting anything yesterday. I feel very sheepish indeed – the Degree Show has hit me once again and my flat is stocked with visitors from Germany and England. One person is sleeping in a cupboard, so as you can imagine, I’m a little busy with them.
The underground in Shanghai is a crazy place; this image is from my lone day trip to Shanghai when I met my friend Susan. We were travelling on the underground to visit a ‘fake’ or ‘copy market’, a wondrous place where one can purchase everything and anything your heart desires (as long as it’s a copy of a designer item). This is a shot of the rows of shops in the underground passageways – so many of them were like this, packed with commuters and consumers all blended together in a rushing wave of activity. Elements of this situation actually frighten me, in the sense that the amount of people and the speed that they were moving was unnerving, especially so far underground. It was so warm there, like being in the belly of a huge pulsating creature; the rumbling of the trains and the vibrations of the rushing people adding to the latent panic in Susan and I. This is urban China at it’s busiest and most affecting – just to stop and stand to take this picture for that short moment was like being pulled out of life for a second, out of time and movement and realising how nutty it is to build shops under the earth.
– Today Rosie is updating her website in Glasgow, Scotland –
