About this project

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bivouacmusic/sets/72157623725847685/show/
[10/04/14] Images from Growing Up With Shanghai - Book 02

Introduction

“Growing Up With Shanghai” is a series of soundwalks with young Shanghainese who were born and raised during the rapid modernization of their city in the 1980s and 1990s. These recordings capture not only their most intimate memories of the locations where they grew up, but also the progress and growth Shanghai has undergone in the past 30 years. The current sounds of Shanghai can be heard behind the dialog and also serve as an audio document for future generations of Shanghainese. All dialogue is in Shanghainese or in their local dialect.

A self-published book of transcripts and photographs of each walk was printed to further enhance your experience and to totally immerse you in each location. The book contained translations in Chinese characters (to help Chinese people understand the Shanghainese dialect), transcripts in English, photographs, and maps to help navigate the routes. The first edition was a limited edition print of 200 books and was recorded, designed, printed, and hand-numbered and packaged in Shanghai, China. It is truly a piece of Shanghai in your hands. All content of the books are offset printed at a professional printing factory in Shanghai (not some corner shop print shop).

Our intention was to have a complete collection of 100 soundwalks, all within the Shanghai Municipality and all with the majority of the people born around 1978-1985. The reason is to get a new view of Shanghai that has not been really documented before and that will be so common and accepted later on. This view is from the first generations after the Cultural Revolution. In some cases, time is of the essence to record their memories now because later on, a lot of the places in their memories will be gone.

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The Second Book

Work on the second book has already started. The next book will have a much wider variety of people and include the other cities outside of Shanghai in order to give a much wider picture of the Municipality.

We have recently found our new photographer, Shen Yi (http://www.flickr.com/photos/yiyi_4cats/), a born and raised local Shanghainese who completed degree in Shanghai and finally her MA in City University in Hong Kong in 2008. Her passion is in the visual arts and she loves to photograph with film.

As a new approach, the next book will be entirely done using film to keep the nostalgic feel of the project as well as to be more in keeping with 'finality' of a recording- be it sound or photographs. Like the audio, the editing of the images will be kept to a bare minimum.

The design of the next book will be quite different from a traditional book. The new preliminary design will make use of individual photographic prints and smaller booklets that one can easily carry to experience the walk.

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Expenses

Our funding amount was based on the expenses of the last book. The printing and the graphic design will again be the majority of the bill with a bit more money allocated to the translations, photography, and proofreading, making this book a more professional and world-class masterpiece.

Our goal is to have the book finished and ready to ship by the end of the Shanghai World Expo on October 31. At the moment we have at least half of the walks needed for the book and the translations are being worked on as you read this. More walks are being arranged in the next 3 months (from April 1st) and will so that by the time is up for our Kickstarter project, we will be ready to go to the final steps with the graphic designer.

If you have any other questions about this project please feel free to contact us.