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Many cities in China use population as a way to describe their size, and Shenzhen is no exception. Often, approximations of population are made that are inaccurate up to several million people. These discrepancies attest to the fact that at some point, accuracy may no longer be important when the numbers exceed all expectations of how big a city may be or how fast it might grow. In a matter of thirty years, Shenzhen became more than just a Special Economic Zone that regulates trade, but also began to filter the millions of migrant workers who flood there in search of work. The census data does not always account for these workers as they often temporarily live six to a room in workers’ complexes before moving on to another city in search of unskilled manufacturing jobs. The census effectively renders these migrant workers nameless. As they no longer live within the provinces of their birth, they are without rights or benefits. Yet staying in their original provinces would limit potential for future employment and economic advancement. There are currently approximately 130 million migrant workers in China. The projection for the year 2025 is 350 million.1

These migrant workers are the source of China’s sudden economic explosion and rapid urban transformation. Without their labor, China would still be an agrarian society—not the conglomeration of 4.5 million people that we know it as today. In 1978 when Deng Xiaoping initiated

market reforms, there were only 172 million urban residents; today, there are over 579 million. That is forty percent of the population in China. The prediction is that by the year 2030, the urban population will reach sixty percent.2 No one

could have predicted the scale of this explosion.

If statistical data were any way to speak objectively across cultures, language barriers, and political affiliations, the numbers might reveal the intimate ties America has with China. Sixty percent of the world’s buttons for clothing are made in China. Datang, known as “socks city,” produces

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pairs per year. As for manufactured products in the United States, seventy -two percent of Americans’ shoes come from China, as do fifty percent of our kitchen appliances and eighty percent of all children’s toys.3 Manufacturing in China might occur at a scale of operation inconceivable to us, but it is in fact our very own industrial-capital model that China has utilized, giving it a distinctly Chinese form. Industrial China in the 21st century is no longer communistic, but capitalistic; capitalism is the new global and economic paradigm. While one might be flattered by China’s emulation of our economic model, if we begin to trace the myriad of forces at play and the impetus for such large-scale manufacturing, it becomes apparent that they are ultimately fueled and stimulated by our very own consumer culture and economy.4

Factories are not only figures on the landscape, but they become landscape themselves. Cities declare a purpose and suddenly explode into instant-cities, unhindered by the weight of history or the morphology of urban conditions. One

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example of this amplified development is the China Yiwu International Trade City. In the middle of Zhejiang province, there is a mall with 30,000 stalls of wholesalers displaying their goods which are ready for export. World pricing on any single product can be commanded here, and if one were to spend one minute in each shop, eight hours a day, it would take two months to go through the entire mall.5

Paradoxical situations surface as quickly as the presence of these mega-cities. While the latest runway collection from any fashion house can be copied and reproduced the next morning, the branding of authenticity is ever more pronounced. There is fake Chanel, and there is real Chanel. Not only do the manufacturing processes of China strangely mirror our own, but the physical landscape does as well. On one level, architectural icons are reproduced without any doubt of authenticity. For example, the Splendid China Theme Park houses a scaled replica of the Great Wall of China, while the World Theme Park in Shenzhen displays the skyline of lower Manhattan. In contrast, urban planners supply instant, gated suburban communities, taking our American suburban model to the extreme. Precisely because the replica is to approximate and appropriate the lifestyle and symbolic values of its referent, it might be judicious to ask what happened to Mao’s Cultural Revolution. As the Chinese landscape begins to resemble our own, it becomes increasingly relevant to ask

inside-outcharacter of China’s textile manufacturing.” “The observer is offered the chance to peek inside—however perversely—into the intricate character of China’s textile manufacturing.” “The observer is offered the chance to peek inside—however perversely—into the intricate character of China’s textile manufacturing.” “The observer is offered the chance to peek inside—however perversely—into the intricate character of China’s

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why and how this strange phenomenon came to be.6

As part of the Fellows Exhibition, Recto | Verso is an investigation into China’s textile manufacturing, dealing with issues of labor and China’s rapid industrialization process. The entire installation is sewn, stitched, and folded out of vellum and newsprint with the Chinese text of Mao’s Little Red Book printed on one side and its English translation on the other. The title Recto | Verso—two sides of the same thing—not only refers to the uncanny scale of China’s operations with roots in Western industrialization, but also the paradoxical outcome of the Cultural Revolution, of capitalism, fashion, and the culture of copy en masse. The inside-out, upside-down relationships are expressed through the structuring of the paper dress and canopy/hanger for the jacket. While Chinese is read upright on the outside of the jacket, modeled after the iconic Chanel jacket, the dress by its continuous folds flips the inside-out, exposing the now upside-down English. The folded textile continues back up, flipping again to become the hanger for the jacket. As such, the interior is a void with the upper half of the body unattached to the lower. The observer is offered the chance to peek inside—however perversely—into the intricate character of China’s textile manufacturing.

The installation is not meant as a criticism, nor does it intend to prescribe a right or wrong strategy for China’s industrialization in the 21st century. It is not a generalized, monolithic analysis to portray China’s rapid transformation, but rather an invitation to take a more careful and nuanced look at China in terms of three unique aspects: scale, labor, and landscapes—territories physical and conceptual.

1. Naomi Klein, “China’s All-Seeing Eye” in Rolling Stone,issue 1053. May 29, 2008. 2. Peter Hessler, “The Road Ahead” in National Geographic, Special Issue, China: Inside the Dragon. (May 2008), p. 177.3. Michael Wolf, “Factory to the World” in National Geographic, Special Issue, China: Inside the Dragon. (May 2008), p. 170.4. For a more in-depth look at how consumer demands drive our economic motor, see Jacques Leslie’s “The Last Empire” in Mother Jones. (February 2008), p. 28–39, 83–85.Examples of tracking natural resources necessary for various manufacturing industries in China are given. Two notable industries are illegal logging for furniture production and cashmere manufacturing for the textile industry, p. 35–38. Both industries inevitably serve the consumer society of North America employing methods championed by US industrialists. While industrially developed societies of Europe and America can wag their fingers to denounce environmental damages incurred by the Chinese manufacturing boom, from air, water, and land pollution to desertification, it should be highlighted that those industries provide cheaper furniture and reduced-cost cashmere sweaters for Americans and Europeans. Both the implementation of sales

margins and the idea of using products and profiting from dirty work occurring in someone else’s backyard deserve closer examination. While the first industrial revolution change the landscape of Europe and America, this industrial revolution in the 21st Century would shape not only most parts of Asia, but also define the global economy that almost all other industrial nations are bound to, whether they like it or not. The phenomenon of China is a threshold through which to enter that study. 5. Peter Hessler, “China’s Instant Cities” in National Geographic. (June 2007), p. 88–117.6. Note the playing off of Saul Steinberg’s New Yorker cover “View of the World from 9th Avenue” (March 29, 1976) with the recent Economist cover by Jon Berkeley “How China sees the World and how the World should see China.” (March 21, 2009).

Many thanks to these individuals who helped with the folding of this installation: Kamana Dhakhwa, Jamie Galimberti, Juan Mercado, and Allison Newmeyer. Special thanks to Katharine Lyons who saw the entire process from beginning to end, from the seed that became the project to this very publication.