A Happy Arrangement

‘A Happy Arrangement’ was inspired by the fictional writings of JG Ballard. In particular his novel High Rise. The project was shot during a 6 month artist residency in Shanghai in which we wandered the rubble left by torn down buildings, as futuristic archaeologists looking for ancient artifacts. The fragmented objects found in the construction sites were subsequently shot in a studio, in the same way a commercial product would be. The artifacts are abandoned survivors, undesirable hints of human presence, left behind because of their lack of commercial value. Mirroring the fate of their former owners, whose houses were destroyed to leave space for high profit residential developments, these scraps are conferred a new dignity associated with the aesthetics provided by mainstream consumerist society. In presenting the remains of a wild gentrification process we raise questions about the role of art as a means to archive the present, within the perspective of an uncertain future.