Ale Garden
After the venue was gone, the photographs I had accumulated over those years shifted from artwork to archive. Together with friends, I used 3D scanning, AI-generated imagery, and video installation to attempt a reconstruction of the space in digital form. The basis for the reconstruction was not architectural plans but shared memory.
The project spans documentary photography, photobooks, and installation, held together throughout by the same group of people and a place that no longer exists.
From 2019, Hongyang and I were both at Fudan, each living our own life in the streets around campus, each taking photographs. We had not yet met.
We met in 2021. That same year, Hongyang formed a band, Wish You Could Swim, with a few friends, and Ale Garden and a handful of venues nearby became the places we gathered. Rehearsals, shows, long nights after the music stopped. Music gave everyone a reason to stay together, like a game anyone was welcome to join, and the longer we played, the closer we grew.
The photographs here come from both of us. From our separate days, to the days we shared, to the days we shared with everyone.
Two photobooks came from this period: I Will Stay for One More Song and Tomorrow Will Be Longer.
In 2024, the industrial park that housed Ale Garden reclaimed the site to build charging stations for electric vehicles. Before it was taken down, our friends made a 3D scan of the space as it last stood.
Since then, starting from the photographs of those years and from what each of us remembered, we have been rebuilding it.