July 18, 2020 – August 15th, 2020 in Shanghai, China
An architect by trade, the Chilean Sebastian Correa has made waves in Shanghai as a prolific and talented illustrator, screen printer, and photographer. While previous shows in 2019 have bordered on the colorful and abstract, his focus and motivation remains the unique metropolis of Shanghai, and his practice zeroes in on the more quotidian aspects of life its dense, urban fabric.
In Beautiful Changning Needs Your Support, Correa trains his eye through the analog lens of black and white 35mm photography. Always armed with his point and shoot Olympus camera in hand, Correa traverses the city primed to capture the split-second ephemera of the everyday. In spotlighting scenes of stories that comprise life in Shanghai, this series explores the tension between the city and its citizens; one that connects and detaches both foreigners and locals alike.
Correa’s entire body of work is rooted in the evocative ability of narrative: in eliciting the imagery, memory, and spirit of a city constantly in flux, he communicates and builds links from the most basic. Correa’s photographic perspective traces the contours of the micro and the macro, and thereby unravels the ways in which the city shapes people and people shape the city; it is this dialogic relationship that urges the audience to re-engage with and reconsider their place in the metaphorical larger picture.
