Kowloon Walled City

This photograph was taken by Greg Girard, a canadian photographer who visited Hong Kong since 1974, and many other countries in Asia. The Kowloon Walled City was a ruined urban settlement in Hong Kong, extreme densely populated, where lived working class people affected by the live conditions in this place. Many of their buildings were evicted or uninhabitabled, until its demolition in 1993.

The photograph shows a town which architecture is practically disappearing in the whole world, because of the proliferation of new buildings, as a part of the gentrification that is changing radically the urban landscape, even here in Santiago. In the Girard's photograph we can see the weight of the time over windows, walls and apartments. Also, we appreciate the singular intervention made by the neighbors.

The image was captured by Girard before to the Kowloon's demolition, in the same year of 1993, as a part of the graphic book "City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City", which he published with his friend and coworker Ian Lambot.

I like this photograph, because it remembers me the Yasujiro Ozu's cinema. In the Ozu movies, there's an idea of modernity against the japanese cultural traditions (family, marriage, sexism, etc.). For example, in An autumn afternoon (1962), there are frames very similar to this photograph. Ozu shows fronts of buildings with clothes hanged up, the wind blowing between the curtains, and mainly, the lethargy and calm of the inanimate objects.

This is not garbage

Well, first of all, this post is not about a festivity, but it's about a very important date for me. I'm refering the last day of every month, because it's the date in which inhabitants of Santiago throw their old things, and many people recycle it, between them, me. I'm not sure about the origin of this day, but certainly during the dictatorship (1973-1990) you couldn't just throw your garbage in the street, because the military were patroling all nights. So, the free recollection of useful old things must be started after that period. Six years ago, I was moving home, from Chillán to San Borja neighborhood in Santiago. I had no idea about this recycling day, and my new apartment was almost empty. I was worried about how to get the money to buy furnitures, when suddenly, a night, walking down Portugal avenue, I saw piles of old furnitures in each corner. Then, I collected a lamp, a table for my living room, a bedside table and a juice extractor, all of that in perfect condition and conservation. Since that moment, every end of months I explore the Santiago streets in search of something useful for my home. I like this days, really celebration days for me, because me and many people have the possibility to get things that in other way, we should buy, generating more garbage in this contaminated and sad world.