WENZHOU (2009) / THE WAY TO THE GOLDEN MOUNTAIN (2013)

In 1999, as a teenager, Xiaoxiao Xu moved from China to The Netherlands. Photography became her antidote to the isolation that she felt, a means for telling stories and making clear what it was that occupied her.

In 2009 Xu photographed the city from which she and her parents had come. Wenzhou is a large port city in the eastern province of Zhejiang, with a population of three million. Xu was overwhelmed by the combination of memories and  contemporary experiences. She could identify with the city, but at the same time felt herself to be an outsider – just as she did in The Netherlands. This resulted in WENZHOU, a series that shows the city as a personal and emotional eexprience.

THE WAY TO THE GOLDEN MOUNTAIN is Xu’s follow-up project. She travelled to the emigration towns around Wenzhou – a region from which many of the Chinese in The Netherlands came, and also the site of the village where Xu was born. The emigration towns, she discovered, have changed greatly since her departure. There is no longer any agriculture, and the river has been filled in to build a motorway. The quiet, tranquil village of Xu’s memories is now comprised of concrete high-rises and villas. The higher the house, the greater the prestige.

Xu made contact with emigrants in The Netherlands, who had generally come to Europe in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s for economic reasons. They nourished the dream of the ‘golden mountain’ by sending money home, without telling about the hard work and long hours. Inspired by the dream of a better life, most of the young people have left the emigration towns. In China Xu made photos of those who had stayed behind and their surroundings. At the same time she investigated the memories from her childhood. A century after the first Chinese set foot in The Netherlands, Xu once again plunged into her own history. The result is personal and universal at the same time.