Building China: People’s Infrastructure
“Building China: People’s Infrastructure” invites audiences to encounter China from the kitchen table and the street corner rather than the skyline. Bringing together photographs and prints from the 1950s to the 1980s with field images from the early 2000s and contemporary works, the exhibition traces urban change through the ordinary spaces where life unfolds.
Across work unit housing, factory yards, courtyards, pavements, parks and markets, the exhibition foregrounds infrastructure as lived experience. Socialist era photographs reveal campaigns that sought to educate as they built, capturing moments of collective labour and care. Reform era scenes register development in motion, with unfinished structures and provisional arrangements shaping everyday routines. Contemporary contributions attend to elevated roads, pavements and public spaces as shared infrastructures, animated through drawing, film and photography that remain attentive to movement and sound.
“Building China: People’s Infrastructure” offers a portrait of continuous infrastructuring, understood as the ongoing adaptation of spaces, rules and materials to meet everyday needs. By bringing the intimacy of routine practices into focus, the exhibition reframes one of the world’s most discussed urban transformations through the ordinary scenes that sustain it.
This exhibition is supported by The Confucius Institute at The University of Manchester. CI is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2026 and this exhibition forms part of our celebrations. Exhibition launch details will be announced shortly.
Lead curator: Prof Deljana Iossifova (Architecture & Urban Studies), University of Manchester
With contributions from Deljana Iossifova, Xin Li, Qiwei Peng, Ziqiu Ren, Rujin Wang and photographs by the late David Lea.
More information: Building China: People’s Infrastructure | Events at The University of Manchester
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