Alejandro Acin
Shipping container at M-shed, Princes Wharf, Wapping Rd, Bristol, BS1 4RN
What can you see if you go looking around the streets and markets of one of the world’s major ports, and how would you perceive them after working on digitising a vast archive of historical photographs of that same city? The port is Bristol’s twin city Guangzhou – Canton – the south China conurbation that has long been a transhipment point for the country’s engagement in the world’s economy. The archive is University of Bristol’s ‘Historical Photographs of China’ project, and this initiative is one of three cultural engagement partnerships sponsored by the AHRC-funded British Inter-university China Centre.
Inspired by themes that emerge from within the 34,000 images digitised by ‘Historical Photographs of China’, photographer Alejandro Acin has been working around some of the most important markets in Guangzhou. The aim was to create a visual narrative based on the routine trading activities of market traders and their relations with their environment.
The exhibition will be publicly displayed inside a shipping container emphasising the idea of trading. The container will be placed at the M Shed by the Bristol docks, from Thursday 12 to Sunday 22 November 2015.
This exhibition is part of InsideArts festival 2015.
