Planting a Town-City
from Plant South Salesroom
in collaboration with May
2024.1
A rooftop kitchen garden in Linhai, Zhejiang, China. Photo by Li Nan from May.
In urban historiography, plants are seldom foregrounded as a primary lens of inquiry. Yet the history of a city - particularly that of China’s town-cities amid the vast transformations of recent decades - is also a history of shifting tensions between humans and their surrounding environments. Following the traces of plants, Planting a Town-City explores the diverse cultural landscapes within and around Linhai, a town-city in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, China. Through courtyard plantings, scattered ancient trees, and the tumultuous history of the Green Movement (Lvhua Yundong), we revisit a layered and complex past.
Author: Yao Jiang, Hangping Yang, Mingyu Zhuang
Design: Hangping Yang, Mingyu Zhuang
January 2024 (first print)
Chinese, 165 x 250 mm, Four-color printing with Chinese binding
A hundred-year old ancient tree in a village of Linhai. Photo by Yu Jian from May.
Potting plants with plastic bags. Photo by Nan Li from May.