Go to the Alien Street
Artists: Hua Weichen
Curator: Ruben Lundgren
One of the stickers on the walls of Chongqing's most notorious amusement parks reads: "God Bless Mexin Foreigner Street". When you think about a central leading figure creating any place on earth, you would be surprised if that place had any resemblance to this park. Let's face it, there was most likely no blessing from any God when the park opened its doors in 2006. It was conceived of by real estate developers as a classy walking street focussing on expatriates and the locals who wanted to interact with them. In this optimistic vision, it would be equipped with exotic restaurants, bars, and shops, operated by members of Chongqing's foreign population. This did not exactly work out.
Except for one American sport bar and an Ethiopian woman serving coffee, the park didn't succeed to attract much attention from foreign nor Chinese visitors at the start. In time buildings of different styles were juxtaposed with various copycat contradictions and absurdities ignoring its original aesthetics. Funny enough this type of irrational and clumsy plagiarism payed off really well. By the early 2010's the park, open 24/7 with no entree ticket, had gained a reputation so weird that you simply had to go and see for yourself when visiting Chongqing.
In the summer of 2015 photographer Hua Weicheng met Sun Zhiguo who lived in the park and carried the nickname "the emperor of Alien Street". In the past Sun had been a member of a reactionary gang in southwest China, but he tumbled down the ladder of society and had been wandering in the amusement park for a while now. Hua got fascinated by the park: "It's chaotic, vulgar and provides a temporary shelter for stall vendors, scavengers, beggars, tramps, lady bodies and lunatics. The Alien Street is like a dark, moist and bacterial corner, where things unfold in a spontaneous primitive state, so as to be different from the monotonous and boring urban space maintained by the boasting of "civilisation" and "good habits" and standardised by reason and institutionalisation. On the one hand, it is a monster born of urban development; on the other hand, it shows the characteristics of deviating from modern urban civilisation."
In his project "Go to the Alien Street" Hua Weicheng combines photography, experimental video and documentary clips shot in the park. The result can be read as a critical contemporary tribute to pragmatism, inventiveness, diversity and weirdness of life. It's a homage to spontaneous growth and of course to the muse of the photographer: Mr Sun. Both the photographer as his main character show us that the tasteless attractions and witty characters within the park can trigger our imagination to heights only the Gods from universes outside our own could have fabricated.
From “Go To The Alien Street” series.2017
From “Go To The Alien Street” series.2017
From “Go To The Alien Street” series.2017
From “Go To The Alien Street” series, 2019
From “Go To The Alien Street” series, 2019
