Observing the immense changes Chinas recent modernization had also on life 'behind ones own four walls', Shanghainese photographer Hu Yang decided to document Shanghai people in their homes today. A grand narrative project. In intense 14 month between 2004 and 2005, Hu Yang visited over 500 people in Shanghai to take pictures of them in their living environment.

Hu Yang entered the homes as a 'familiar stranger'. His un-defined position as a kind of 'unfamiliar familiar', somebody who belongs and still comes from somewhere else, gave him access to a broad range of people – from poor to rich, native to immigrants etc. - allowed him to enter their private home and take short interviews. The result is a unique documentary of private life in a city of rapid change, where homes become more private, discrepancies in life stile big, and where private life is still trying to find its shape.

Hu Yang doesn't picture heroes, nor victims, he doesn't expose nor beautify, he keeps the same cool-sympathetic distance to everybody. It is a research.
In the exhibition there are just 100 people, 100 images, 100 life stories, very short stories, assertions, dreams and fears. A grand narrative. Close to life. Close to art.

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A catalogue is available (174 pages, 141 images with short texts; introduction by Prof. Zhang Hong, Tongji University, Prof. Li Lu, Shanghai Normal University and an interview by Meng Tao, Editor of Chinese Photography with Hu Yang; People’s Fine Art Publishers, Shanghai, 2005)