Photo week focuses on industrial and revolutionary relics
Photographers take pictures of a statue of the revolutionary martyr Xu Keqiang (1908-1942) in Songnan Park.
A photography week focused on Shanghai’s northern industrial heritage and revolutionary history was launched today to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.
The Tourism and Photography Week began in Songnan Town in Baoshan District, a vibrant industrial center in the 1990s.
Photographers from home and abroad have been invited to former factories and industrial sites during the five-day event that runs through Sunday.
Many of the sites remain closed to the public and will be redeveloped, while others have been transformed into museums and innovation parks.
They include the former factory houses of the city's earliest glassware plant, a motorcycle factory, an iron alloy plant, a gas plant and a warehouse for China's early exports.
The Shanghai Museum of Glass, for instance, renovated from the former No. 1 Plant of the Shanghai Glassware Company, has been listed as one of the top three recommended museums in China by foreign media.
Visitors view a photo exhibition about the revolutionary martyr Xu Keqiang in Baoshan's Songnan Town.
The event also aims to promote the revolutionary history of Songnan through the lenses of photographers. Many martyrs and leaders of workers’ movements were born in the town or launched their campaigns in the former industrial center.
A photo exhibition on Xu Keqiang (1908-1942) began at Songnan Park today as part of the event. The native of the town who served as a county Party secretary in neighboring Jiangsu Province was killed by Japanese troops during China’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-1945).
A number of iron-steel and chemical factories, as well as container warehouses, were built in Songnan in the early 1990s, under the concept of developing the historical town with steel and port industries.
However, the traditional industries entered bottleneck periods beginning in 2000 due to a shortage of resources and pollution problems. Many of the factories have been redeveloped into high-tech parks or makerspaces since 2008.
Photographers have also been invited to visit the former site of Shanghai No. 1 Iron Steel Factory and the former Wusong gas plant, which are being preserved and redeveloped as the core area of the future Wusong Smart City.
Photographers pose with a woodcut image of revolutionary martyr Xu Keqiang.
The Shanghai Iron Alloy Plant, once a major pollution source in north downtown, has become a park featuring steel sculptures made of iron and steel remnants of the plant.
Other industrial heritages along the recommended tour route for photographers include the China Industrial Design Museum, which was renovated from the former Shanghai Happiness Motorcycles plant — once a popular form of transportation for citizens.
An import and export warehouse called Zhongcheng was built in 1959. Many made-in-China goods were exported across the world from the warehouse in the 20th century. It has been developed into the Elite Valley innovation park, home to more than 60 startups.
The innovation parks have attracted nearly 1,000 Internet and software firms, as well as cultural companies related to wedding arrangements, sports, eSports and cultural innovation, according to the township government.
Songnan initiated the annual photography event in 2017 to record the redevelopment of the city’s former industrial base. In 2019, photographers were invited to the Shanghai No.1 Iron Steel Factory and the former Wusong gas plant to record the final images before the massive redevelopment project was launched for the smart city.
Songnan Park in Baoshan District.
