Est-ce que les altermondialistes ont crié leurs frustrations ici?

L’ancien chef se trouve sur le mur à Guangzhou.

The former chairman found himself on a wall in Guangzhou.

Who tagged above? It is right outside a construction site in Guangzhou (also known as Canton in the past) , a city in Southeastern China. Was it someone fed up with rapid urban redevelopment? A common scenary in many major cities in China is the leveling of huge city blocks replacing them with highrises. The “pockets” that temporarily survive become “villages in a city” or cheng zhong cun (城中村). These areas are at times the synonym of ghettos. Can that be a better model of (non) development? Are there alternatives?

>J’étais au Hong Kong Museum of Art 香港藝術館 pour une exposition sur les cheveux (voir les photos qui suivent), je me suis posé la question, ‘Est-ce que un gouvernement peut planifier un quartier culturel pour une ville de presque sept millions d’habitants?’

Tout dépend de votre définition de l’art et de la culture. Hong Kong, malgré son succès comme centre financier et comme ancienne porte principale de la République populaire de Chine, est assez anémique culturellement selon certains critiques.



The vast landmass reclaimed from sea in Kowloon, what in the future would be the West Kowloon Cultural District, is still undergoing quasi public consultation. Many people asked if arts and culture can be “planned” or “engineered”. Hong Kong is quite eager to shake off the image as a cultural dessert, which has been depicted in various local and international media. If art and culture document human experience, a city of close to seven million should be overflowed with culture. After all, that’s similar in size to Québec, and the latter has plenty of water, physically and culturally! (Un)sustainable development, environment, economy, non-business interest, creativity, cultivation and toruism and internaitonal statue are just some of the issues on people’s lips. What would you do if you are the Hong Kong government bureaucrats running the show? Yes, they want the cake and have it too! It will interesting to come back five, and ten years down the road to see the changes.