In the early 1990s, a property developer from Hong Kong decided to build a seaside resort called “Ten Billion New City” on Dongshan Island, an island in southern China. “Ten billion” was not simply a turn of phrase; they committed to invest 30 billion RMB over 15 years, building an international metropolis on this small island. Due to the rise of several hundred villas with pleasure boats, this hub for entertainment attracted rich people from elsewhere who wanted to spending money on tourism. For the local residents, this was a completely different yet not entirely visible world, and tourism became an emerging industry on the island. However, the Asian financial crisis happened in 1997, just two years after the project was finished, and the Hong Kong property developer’s chain of funding was broken. Their investment had been very large, but the tourism market was not large enough. In the end, Ten Billion New City was abandoned, and the New City became rubble. Using the name “Ten Billion New City” as a metaphor, I want to tell the story of how an ordinary island handled foreign investment, and the story of finding your own place within the dream of becoming a seaside resort and the silence after that dream was destroyed.
Zhu Lanqing 朱嵐清, 1991 born in Dongshan Island, China, lives and works in Xiame now. She graduated from the Department of Photojournalism at Renmin University of China and then moved to Taiwan to study at the Institute of Applied Arts in Fujen Catholic University. Her work, most related to the place under globalization and modernization, have been published in many magazines and shown at different international art festivals. She is interested in the possibilities of the presentation of photography especially handmade book. Her first book was selected in the list of Photoeye’s Best Books of 2012. Her second book A Journey in Reverse Direction won the Three Shadows Photography Award 2014 and Jimei X Arles Discovery Award 2015. She also won the Barcelona International Photography Award 2015 and Photo Boite 30 UNDER 30 2016. She just finished an artist residency program in Switzerland for three months supported by FDDM .
