I went to China without a special plan. Then I was really confused by all these new impressions, ideas and ways that things existed there. But slowly my wish to see China with my own eyes moved to the interest in un- derstanding more the Chinese view of their own country. So more and more the pictures produced in China about China gained my attention, like you can find them in posters, packages, cartoons, little figures....
90 days, 90 seconds Video,
photo series Single frame animation of over 2000 photos - shot in 90 days in Chengdu, Chongqing, Danba, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan.
The ongoing high-speed transforma-
tions of urban space in current China as
well as the development of new models
of cities and urban landscapes mostly
aim at economic growth.
This Chinese “jump into the future” of
living conditions and architecture, espe-
cially in the years of enormous interna-
tional attention towards China because
of the Olympic Games Beijing 2008 and
the World Expo Shanghai 2010, works
as a world laboratory of city planning.
One of the related problems of these
processes is the large-scale destruction
of long-established city structures, mi-
The wallpaper “Décor Chinois” was created by the French company Zuber in 1832 after the design of the artists Ehrmann and Zipelius and served the European bourgeoisie’s fascination for the cultural and scenic opulence of China. This wallpaper is standing in the tradition of hand-printed decor wallpapers that came into vogue in the beginning of the 19th century and that were mostly designed by painters that have never left Europe in person.
In 2007 Sonia Leimer found a part of the Chinese Wall in Mongolia. This part was built in the middle of the Mongolian landscape for a movie shot by BBC called „Genghis Khan“. Together with the Mongolian film crew that shot the original scenes Sonia Leimer did a movie with and about the leftover film set.
