Kordegarda Project

curator: Magda Kardasz

Ferit Kuyas’s exhibition City of Ambition presents a series of photographs made between 2004 and 2008. Published earlier in book format, we are presenting them at Projekt Kordegarda in the form of large-size prints and wall projections. Thus the viewers will be able to see several dozen images of Chongqing, one of the many Chinese cities growing at an impressively and terrifyingly rapid pace, currently occupying an area equal to one third of Poland, inhabited by over 32 million people.

The author presents an image of the place that has nothing to do with tourist propaganda. Although we get to see slick new skyscrapers but they seem to be standing in a wilderness or amid lush vegetation or in the middle of infrastructure-devoid fallow. The great squares and (too) wide streets seem strangely empty. The huge viaduct, photographed by Kuyas several times, resembles the ruins of an ancient building commemorating authoritarian state structures rather than a modern highway under construction. The pictures record a moment of transition and transformation for the landscape, architecture and social relations. Looking through Kuyas’s lens, we admire the scale and grandiosity of the changes but also sense the great human and ecological cost they come at. It is not an accident that Chongqing lies close to the famous – and controversial – Three Gorges Dam.
Magda Kardasz

City of Ambition – Fas t Forwa rd in China (2004–2008)
City of Ambition is a visit to one of the largest cities in the world. The images aim to reflect the sheer dimensions of the cityscape. Like most of my work, this project has autobiographic roots: I got to know the city through my family who lives there. Chongqing – unknown place for most people in the western world, was granted municipal status in 1997, rather late compared to Shanghai. But the people of Chongqing are very eager to show the world and their sister cities in China who they are. Together with the booming economy, this leads to an explosion in city development. Construction sites and cranes can be seen everywhere. What is taking place resembles Manhattan in the 1920s with the construction of skyscrapers. So Stieglitz’s name for Chongqing, “City of Ambition”, reflects its transition. The city is located in Southwest China’s region of Sichuan. The municipality is populated by approximately 32 million people. I am mostly interested in the outskirts of Chongqing, where the city can’t really be seen, but rather sensed. Construction sites and places of change show metaphorical facets of the huge changes taking place in contemporary China.

The fog dominating most pictures is real. The city’s nickname in China is “City of Fog”. It reflects the big mystery China still is for me. After many travels it seems like the more I learn the less I know. Although this body of work definitely has a documentary component I don’t understand myself as a documentalist. The ability to express my personal emotions through my images is very important for me.
Ferit Kuyas

Ferit Kuyas – born in Istanbul in 1955. He studied architecture and law at the University of Zurich. In 1986 he started his career in photography. Lives and works near Zurich.

The series of works City of Ambition – Fast Forward in China got published in October 2009 as a book by Schilt Publishing, Amsterdam, and Benteli Publishers, Switzerland.

selected individual exhibitions:
2010
projection, Yokohama Photo Festival Bau-Xi Photo, Toronto
Galerie Monika Wertheimer, Oberwil, Switzerland
projection, Yokohama Photo Festival
2009
Lux Photo Gallery, Amsterdam Interlaken Art Museum, Interlaken, Switzerland
Galerie Monika Wertheimer, Oberwil, Switzerland
Tenth International Photography Gathering, Aleppo, Syria Photoforum Pasquart,
Bienne, Switzerland
Blue Sky Gallery, Portland
2008
Photofusion, London
Fotofestiwal, Łodź
2007
Galerie Monika Wertheimer, Oberwil, Switzerland
2004
IG Halle, Rapperswil, Switzerland
Fondation Herzog, Basel
2000
Galerie Periscope, Liege
2001
Leica Gallery, Nidau, Switzerland
Walter Storms Galerie, Munich
1999
Nikon Image House, Kusnacht, Switzerland
Vebikus, Schaffhausen, Switzerland

most important projects:
1989–1994
Industrial Interiors
1989–1994
Industrial Landscapes
1995–2009
Archetypes
1997–2000
Shanghai
2003
11.09 – Two Years After
2004–2008
City of Ambition
2005/2006
Chinese Smokers
od / from 2007
Agglosuisse
od / from 2001
Americana