I visited Shanghai in 2007 and the city was metamorphosing at breakneck speed perhaps due to the Shanghai Expo and the the Beijing Olympics of 2008. One area of the city that caught my imagination in particular was where the the traditional low houses known as Hutongs were being torn down to make way for the modern high rises. In between the new and the demolished buildings people lived amongst the rubble, the sides of their houses ripped open as if in the aftermath of shelling. As well as this melancholy contrast I tried to capture the strange emptiness and theatricality of this temporary part of the city.