disCONNEXION
In the present information age nothing appears so old-fashioned as a computer. The southern Chinese province of Kwantung, around Hong Kong, is one of the places where discarded electronic apparatus is dismantled. More than 100,000 people recycle waste computers there from countries such as Japan, South Korea and the United States, sometimes working under dreadful conditions. Travelling back and forth between the land of her birth and the West, Danwen (b. 1967) saw how increasing Western influences stimulated the economic development of China, but also the massive social inequality and environmental problems this caused. Through the aesthetic of her photographs Danwen isolates her subjects from their social context and in doing so emphasises the underlying conflict between modernity and tradition.
