Yan Jiacheng reflects on how people adapt to rapidly changing urban environments, and how public space continues to function as a stage for collective life.
Since 2020, I have been photographing a suburban district on the outskirts of Guangzhou, China. Although geographically close to the city centre, this area exists in a different rhythm. It is a place of unfinished development, temporary landscapes, and everyday routines that often go unnoticed.
Rather than focusing on dramatic events, I am interested in the ordinary moments that shape daily life: people gathering in open spaces, resting after work, exercising, waiting, or simply spending time together. Through repeated visits over several years, I began to see the suburb not as a transitional zone, but as a place with its own social logic and emotional texture.
The project reflects on how people adapt to rapidly changing urban environments and how public space continues to function as a stage for collective life. By returning to the same locations again and again, I attempt to build a portrait of a community through accumulation, repetition, and observation.
Night in the Suburbs is both a record of a specific place and an exploration of contemporary suburban life in China.
Yan Jiacheng is a Chinese photographer and visual artist based in Guangzhou, China. Working primarily with photography, his practice focuses on suburban life, labour, migration, and the social landscapes of contemporary China.
Hannah Caldwell uses nature’s forms and suspended blooms to explore impermanence, and the tender dualities at the heart of human experience.
