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Unbelievable Stacks of Chinese Goods Piled High on Bikes
Posted By
Bridgette Meinhold
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Art,Design,Innovations,Transportation |
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“Totems” is the result of Delorme’s two residencies in Shanghai and his fascination with the migrant worker. The vertical nature of the towers echos the looming facades and skyscrapers in the background as well as the expansion and construction of new urbanity. Workers, who have transported themselves to the city on their bikes, are depicted with the near superhuman ability to carry extraordinary loads of manufactured goods across town.
The towers of goods become almost sculptures themselves, and great care was taken to balance the unbelievable loads and protect the goods along their bicycle route. Is this a look at how we have become worshipers of manufactured goods or a look at how we have become servants and slaves to them? The answer is likely a bit of both. Delorme’s photographic works take root in reality, but they have been carefully composed to produce an exaggerated perspective and drive his point home.
Via RecycleArt
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Totems is a new photographic series by French photographer Alain Delorme that looks at the new pillars of society – goods “Made in China”. These precarious towers of chairs, bottles, toys, cardboard boxes and other products transported through the of to
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Delorme’s new series was recently exhibited at the Magda Danysz Gallery in Paris. It depicts the plight of migrant workers who transport good across the city.
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Totems is a look at the pillars of society — goods “Made in China”, which gain almost sacred status.
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The precariously-balanced towers of manufactured goods are transported via migrant workers in Shanghai and admired along their route.
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The men transporting the loads have almost super human powers — they’re capable of moving unbelievable amounts of goods on their backs.
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The images are all based in reality but are altered and photoshopped to present an “augmented reality”.
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As Raphaële Bertho, a photography historian, says: “Under the blue sky of a highly colored Shanghai, men carry throughout the city unbelievable piles. These precarious columns made of cardboard or chairs appear as new totems of a society in complete transformation, both a factory for the world and a new El Dorado of the market economy.”
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The images reveal an almost absurd and over-the-top look at our obsession with goods.
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The towers of goods also reflect and echo the towering buildings and skyscrapers in the background, pointing to how the city of Shanghai is continually growing and expanding.
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Bertho also says, “Far from a hymn to materialism, these images, putting forward the overabundance of the objects, tend to the absurd and let catch a glimpse of the complexity of a country reinventing itself. Between dream and reality, these pictures turn upside down the scales of values and blur the border between the visible and the invisible.”
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