Jingyi Gao

jingyii.gao@mail.utoronto.ca

Bio

My name is Jingyi Gao and my preferred pronouns are she/her.

I am myself from Beijing, where I also currently live, and thus Chinese culture is something I have been deeply yet passively immersed in, though my whole life. Having spent a long time studying in Canada, I have only recently started taking more active interest in my own culture. I am a visual multimedia artist and photographer and would love to explore more themes in my work that pertain to my personal and cultural identity, drawing upon the work of many other artists influential in the cultural Asian sphere, rather than following more Western influences.

Ghost Town
The Fading History of Communist Living Spaces in Beijing

With this project I’m aiming to explore the buildings that were built as communal housing under the communist regime in Beijing’s urban districts. While initially built for simple functionality for communes, these structures are now mostly abandoned and have fallen into various states of disrepair. Some people still live there though, and the contrast between their items from modern life and the setting of ageing buildings from history. I am fascinated by the communal lifestyle that the residents of these buildings still maintain. These residences were built with shared kitchens and bathrooms, which while not the most convenient, inevitably create a sense of camaraderie with the other residents, and work to create a more tightly knit community. It is interesting to explore how traces of this more communal lifestyle show up in my photography from these places through little visual clues. The juxtaposition of small visual examples of shared space with the much more individualistic western lifestyle I’ve experienced in Canadian modern cities is a fascinating contrast.

AnHua Building

Location：Beijing,Dongcheng District