There is no elevator. We walk up the eight flights of stairs, hesitating on the last one, looking at each other, out of breath: we have no right to be here. The roof is a maze of corridors, narrow passageways between huts built of sheet metal, wood, brick and plastics. There are steps and ladders leading up to a second level of huts. We get lost. Our leaflets in hand, Rufina knocks on a door. There is an exchange in Cantonese. Stefan stands in the background, the foreigner, smiling, not understanding a word. They hear us out, smile back and invite us into their homes.
Later, we look down at the building from a higher one across the street. The roof is huge, like a village. There must be thirty or forty households on it. From the outside there is no way of knowing what is inside. Whether they have Internet or not. Whether they have a toilet. And there is no way of knowing their stories.
Who makes a picture of this? Who keeps a record? Sometimes a newspaper will print an article, or an NGO will launch a campaign. Various government departments keep files on so-called “unauthorized building works”, coding the huts with permanent markers and photographing them. The files are not on public record, but residents may look at them to learn why their homes are to be demolished. Very rarely do rooftop residents document their own spaces: the family pictures we saw were taken standing in a field of sunflowers, or in a village in the mainland, or down on the street beside someone else’s car, smiling.
We walk up the stairs again. We no longer get lost in the corridors. We learn how residents modify and maintain their homes. There are people who have been living on the roof for twenty or thirty years who have helped to build the city. The new immigrants from Mainland China, from Southeast Asia, from Pakistan, continue to do so. In the seventies, they built the underground, and now they are working on the new tower blocks. Hong Kong’s older districts are being redeveloped. Some buildings are crumbling because they were built with salt water concrete. Others have to make way for taller ones that yield higher profits. Few rooftop residents would mind living in the new towers, but they cannot afford it. All are afraid of being resettled to the remote satellite towns, where there may be few opportunities and limited social networks.
We walk up the stairs again. The rooftop settlements are an urban legacy, telling the story of Hong Kong, of political upheavals in Mainland China, of urban redevelopment, of people’s hopes and their needs in the city.
Rufina Wu / Stefan Canham, Portraits from Above, 2008
Stefan Canham I’d like to ask you a few questions about the pictures we’ve been taking. The altars …
I noticed they are always opposite the door, in a corner opposite the door.
Ly Ta May One house has three sides … this side is for the men can stay, and this side women can stay, but in the middle, it have to be in the middle, this is a special place, for the family, and then they can enjoy the view by the door.
Stefan Canham I don’t unterstand. Who enjoys the view by the door?
Ly Ta May When the grandmother, grandfather, when they pass away, and then we always tell them to come stay in here, then they can enjoy. They know how to stay in the family. And then they will take care of this generation. They take care of the people.
Stefan Canham Most are of this type, they have three shelves.
Ly Ta May The bigger one is just like a house, because inside we make like a pagoda. They always close it, but they will put it inside, and every Chinese New Year, then every man will come to pray, to dance … it’s not everyone, just some people they can come to dance, not everyone in the village.
Stefan Canham And the shaman will come to decorate this thing with paper, and place these objects there?
Ly Ta May Every one times a year the shaman will come to put the paper in here.
Stefan Canham And these objects? They look like tools.
Ly Ta May OK, let me tell you. That one is a knife to cutting the paper. And this is, you know, like the stamp, you can see the paper have the stamp. And then this is the just we make the noise. And this is like the bamboo, and when they go to pray, before they pray, and then they have to make one like this (claps her hands).
Stefan Canham On this one, there are also many things lying here, looks like exercise books, maybe something from school.
Ly Ta May No, no, not the exercise books. They write something important for the ancestor and then they have to keep that. They have to write down everything exactly, remember the one who pass away, write down exactly this person, and then the day, the time they pass away. And everything important they write in there and leave it there. Always stay here.
Stefan Canham I see quite often with the altars, there are broken cups.
Ly Ta May Cause we use broken cups, like this always be kitchen for you, kitchen for ancestors …
Stefan Canham And this stool thing, this little chair?
Ly Ta May That is old chair. When the boy they be eighteen years or whatevever, they getting married, and then they can … they become the man. Grownup already.
Stefan Canham At the ceremony, the boy who becomes grown-up has to wear women’s clothes?
Ly Ta May Yes. And then always this is the chair for them to sitting.
Stefan Canham And what are these strips of paper?
Ly Ta May They just put that New Year. This is the New Year, and then we give you some paper, and stuck in here.
Stefan Canham And does the Shaman make these and put them there?
Ly Ta May No, that is the family. The men, like my husband can do it.
Stefan Canham These things are also made by the family? With the stamp? Would this be the stamp that’s on the altar?
Ly Ta May Yes. We start with the doors, and this be New Year, and we put the door, and protect the family … get good luck.
Stefan Canham So you decorate the altar, and you decorate doors … why doors?
Ly Ta May We start with the doors, and this be New Year, and we put the door, and protect the family … get good luck.
Stefan Canham And you just leave the papers there?
Ly Ta May Yes, leave the paper there. Nobody will break them.
Stefan Canham Sometimes they just fall off …
Ly Ta May Yes, just fall off …
Stefan Canham in conversation with Ly Ta May about Altars, Doors and Lucky Paper
Im Herbst 2002 wurde der Hamburger Bauwagenplatz „Bambule“, der seit 1994 auf einem Grundstück der Stadt geduldet worden war, durch die Polizei geräumt. In den darauffolgenden Monaten organisierten Bewohner und Unterstützer dieses anarchischen, kostengünstigen und ebenso kommunalen wie egoistischen Wohnprojekts wöchentliche Protestzüge durch die Hamburger Innenstadt. Die Medien berichteten, und zum Ende des Jahres war Bambule jedem ein Begriff – aber während die Zeitungen sich mit Polizisten und Demonstranten füllten wurde mir bewußt, daß es von den Bauwagen selber keine Bilder gab.
Bambule ist Teil eines nationalen Phänomens: in den achtziger Jahren begannen Leute mit Bauwagen, Zirkuswagen, LKWs und Bussen brachliegende, aber häufig sehr zentrale und potentiell wertvolle städtische Flächen zu besetzen. Heute gibt es von Flensburg bis runter nach Tübingen und München an die einhundert Wagenburgen. Wahrscheinlich leben in Deutschland rund zehntausend Menschen im Wagen.
Diese improvisierten aber dauerhaften Wohnsitze versuche ich in meinen Bildern als urbanes architektonisches Phänomen zu begreifen. Die Innenansichten sind streng zentralperspektivisch aufgenommen, um die Variationen innerhalb eines immer gleichen, sehr begrenzten Rahmens herauszuarbeiten (ein Bauwagen ist ein länglicher, ungefähr zwei Meter breiter und drei bis zehn Meter langer Kasten mit einem gewölbten Dach). Die Bewohner, ebenso viele Frauen wie Männer, sind Auszubildende, Schüler, Musiker, Schauspieler, Tai Chi Lehrer, Gärtner, Akademiker, Punks, Hippies etc, eine überaus heterogene Gruppe, die sich über ihre Wohnform doch immer wieder als Gemeinschaft definiert; entsprechend groß ist die Bandbreite der Inneneinrichtungen.
Im Gegensatz zum geschlossenen, privaten Universum des Innenraums ist das Bild von außen harsch: Bauwagen sind in das Gefüge der Stadt getriebene Fremdkörper, ausrangierte Anhänger, mit Brettern, Wellblech, Styropor und Teerpappe zusammengezimmert, häufig um ein zweites Stockwerk erhöht und durch prächtige Altbaufenster beleuchtet. Da es keinen Dachboden oder Keller gibt, wird das umliegende Brachland zum Lagerraum. Bauwagen sind eine Architektur ohne Architekten, spontan von Innen nach Außen wachsend, entsprechend der Bedürfnisse ihrer Bewohner.
Stefan Canham, Bauwagen, 2006
Wie die Silhouette eines Dorfes erheben sich die Wagen aus dem Feld. Anders als in der Stadt, wo sich Bauwagenplätze gerne an den Übergängen von Wohn- zu Industriegebieten verstecken, ist das Wagendorf Fango weithin sichtbar.
Vor sechs Jahren stand ein Teil dieser mobilen Architekturen noch auf Grabeland, ein anderer auf einem Grundstück der Lüneburger Universität. In beiden Fällen mussten sie Neubauten weichen. Um einen weniger prekären Ort für ihre Wohnform zu finden, schlossen sich die Bauwagenbewohner zusammen und traten in Verhandlung mit dem Bürgermeister.
Das Unwahrscheinliche gelang: stadtauswärts, dort, wo der Masterplan eine Frischluftschneise vorsieht, in der keine mehrstöckigen Bauwerke errichtet werden dürfen, wurde Platz für ein Wagendorf gefunden. Und anstelle der kleinlichen Gängelung, mit der Verwaltungen üblicherweise Bauwagenplätzen begegnen, schrieb Lüneburg in der Präambel des unbefristeten Vertrags fest, dass auf dem „ca. 9.000 qm großen Stellplatz für Bauwagen und sonstige fliegende Bauten […] eine alternative Wohn- und Lebensform zulässig und möglich werden soll.“
So entstand ein Dorf mit einer in der Stadt kaum denkbaren Dynamik: im Eigenbau wird die spontane Architektur der Wagen den sich über die Zeit verändernden Bedürfnissen der Bewohner angepasst; die räumliche Anordnung der Wagen und Gemeinschaftsflächen ist grundsätzlich veränderbar. Recycling ist ein zentraler Aspekt des Selbstbaus: Nachbarn bringen brauchbare Materialien direkt zum Platz, Tischler sind froh, wenn sie Altbaufenster nicht kostenpflichtig entsorgen müssen, Öfen finden sich über Kleinanzeigen, Möbel aus Wohnungsauflösungen, Töpfe aus Edelstahl vom Schrotthändler zum Kilopreis.
Die Aufnahmen zeigen zum Teil Räume, die noch im entstehen sind, und verweisen so auf die grundsätzliche Möglichkeit der Veränderung.
Stefan Canham, Fango, 2017
On Sunday Mornings, mid-1980s
We cut diagonally across the play field where we learned how to ride a bicycle to the dimsum restaurant next to the Kwai Fong MTR station.
Tea at dimsum was not served in large communal teapots. Instead it was served in individual Chinese tea cups: emperor yellow porcelain cups adorned with dragons, phoenixes, and words of blessings. We were free to choose the kind of tea leaves we wanted. My father always ordered Pu Er tea with chrysanthemum flowers. It felt very ‘grown-up’ to be allowed to have my very own cup of tea.
The highlight was the ritual stopover at one of the newspaper stands flanking the restaurant entrance. My father would pick up his newspaper, while my brother and I each got to choose a comic book. Selection wavered between Old Master Q, Ngau-chai, and Doraemon the robot cat. The wide array of print materials ensured there was something for everyone.
Confucius says: When eating, one did not converse. When in bed, one did not speak. There was hardly any talking at our table. It was difficult to catch a glimpse of my father’s face hidden behind the newspaper. Nonetheless the four of us bonded: nibbling on shrimp dumplings, sipping tea, and catching up on the latest current events, fictional and real.
Hong Kong Newsstands documents the humble, dynamic street-side sculptures with the use of architectural drawings and photography.
Rufina Wu, Hong Kong Newsstands
