project by Mikhail Porollo photographer's note Amid the continually growing global importance of China and its dramatic comeback in recent years, my interest in this country has ever deepened. I wanted to feel its flow, to experience it in person, to touch it, to understand it, to photograph it. One of the things about this East Asian civilisation, which has fascinated me most, is the way it responds to interventions from outside. It first absorbs them like a river, blends them, transforms them into something different and so acquires a new face while carrying the memories of the past within itself. I wanted to see how the monuments of ancient China have been reincarnated into the new architectural forms now dominating the cityscape of the metropolis are becoming new symbols of the country. I needed to view them from outside, without their usual context, in order to accentuate their monumental grandeur, solidness and power. I wondered about how illusory this particular cityscape must be, how fast it would change because of the constant development and construction which will in turn lead to something even more futuristic and impressive. The project was more challenging than I expected: the crush of the crowds, the extreme summer heat, the limitations of time and space, but I managed to capture a series of images, which had already caught my interest before my journey began. © Mikhail Porollo 2016
