For the Benefit of the People

Anyone interested in Shanghai's many and fascinating Jewish connections may know Dvir Bar-Gal's name already. The Israeli journalist and photojournalist has been leading popular tours of the historic Hongkou district since 2002 and has become an integral member of the community there.

However, Bar-Gal’s latest project tracks an altogether different history of the changes Shanghai has seen over the past decade. For the Benefit of the People comprises colour photographs taken from when Bar-Gal first arrived in Shanghai in 2001, right through to today.



The obvious changes are there – a photograph of the Pudong skyline taken at the dawn of the
noughties looks strangely empty, cranes poised against a blue and white sky the only inkling to the photo’s counterpart – a shimmering, 2010 nighttime portrait of what has quickly become a familiar neon display.

There are constants, too: a section of the book is dedicated to the V sign, oft adopted by Asian holiday makers. A toddler who can be no more than five years old looks up from his drawing to pose, whilst on the next page a gentleman of perhaps 50 adopts the same stance for a picture taken by Bar-Gal years later. "Foreigners who take my tour – Americans, Canadians, Australians – they always comment on this photo pose. It’s a very cultural thing; I don't know where it comes from", he muses.



Shanghai, according to Bar-Gal, is laden with such paradoxes: the city's very name, for example, suggests a tantalizing closeness to the sea, despite no sea being visible anywhere from the city. Bar-Gal directs me to a photograph entitled Celebrating 60 years for the PRC – the Party Gala. All gold and China red, the image proudly displays Beijing's Gate of Heavenly Peace back-lit by an ethereal glow. In front sit three benches, presumably forgotten, lending a certain clumsiness to an otherwise impressive display, illustrative of the inconsistencies Bar-Gal describes. Another shows Dolce & Gabbana’s Bund boutique flanked by banners proclaiming Motherland. In the reflection of the shop’s window we glimpse the Jin Mao and SWFC, all making for an international, futuristic portrait, illustrative of just how exceptional Shanghai is, and how much it has changed.





Some elements of the city have already disappeared – hence, explains Bar-Gal, the opening image of the book which could easily be mistaken (and was by yours truly) as flowers in front of a store to celebrate its opening. Rather, though, these flowers are for mourning. Between the two rows of bamboo frames decorated with bows and tinsel sits a low, empty chair. Bar-Gal explains, "The empty chair signifies someone no longer here, an absence of people, maybe a past that is gone". Appropriately, the book’s final image is colourful and exuberant: a family of four rides a scooter, one of the riders with her arms outstretched as if flying. But back to the flowers and chair: it's a powerful image and one that sets a theme for other works in the book – that of layers of meaning, many of which would be lost on non-Chinese readers were it not for the images’ helpful and telling titles.





Foreigners, notes Bar-Gal, may assign different meanings, connotations and nostalgia to elements of Shanghai. Where many might be inclined to see historic lanes reduced to rubble as a sad destruction of the ‘real’ China, skew your perspective slightly and it could equally represent progress. This brings us to the book’s title, taken from a 2007 image of Zhabei district. Rubble and concrete in the foreground, a banner is slung between two buildings, its gold on red lettering standing out against the otherwise drab palette of greys declaring the demolition to be For the Benefit of the People. And really, for many, perhaps relocating to the high-rises depicted in the corresponding image is progress. Alternatively, a bulldozer poised to wreak destruction on people's homes accompanied by a 'For the benefit' banner is ironic in the extreme. Such are the paradoxes that Bar-Gal sees as so illustrative of the first decade of the 21st century in Shanghai.



In part funny and in part intriguing, Dvir Bar-Gal's For the Benefit of the People will be launched on Saturday 27 November from 4pm – 7pm at Hong Merchant Gallery.