Abstract nominee

This is an ongoing project in photographing street walls covered with torn down posters and postings. It was inspired by my travel to Beijing in 2012 and wandering through its old alleyways ("wu tongs"). There are many levels of interest in capturing these images. The remnants of paper on the walls are evidence of a range of human activities that have mobilized people of varying interests throughout the years - concerts, lost and found, rentals, sales, social gatherings, etc. The designs, colors, textures, and conditions of these fragments are created by the erosion of time and sculpted through both natural and human elements. What were originally functional, often quick and thoughtless acts of putting up announcements and advertisements have now become unique, one-of-a-kind, abstract visual compositions. These surface-objects are deceptively static, but of course they are constantly and slowly changing, like the surfaces of mountains and rocks - decaying, shape-shifting, fading, micro-fibres of paper continuing to be stripped away through the elements, creating new patterns and geometric compositions. It is also a personal exercise in observation, in finding visual rhythms and patterns amidst these walls we so often pass by without a glance.