Research

  • Urban Africa, Made in China
  • GRANTEE
    Justin Hui
    GRANT YEAR
    2014

Photo: Justin Hui

Across the African continent, Chinese companies are constructing infrastructure and buildings modeled after China’s urban development. The sheer number of construction throughout the continent has ushered China onto the world stage as a major player in global development, raising profound implications for Africa’s urban future. Through fieldwork and archival research, the project documents and examines the architecture and infrastructure built by Chinese enterprises throughout East and Southern Africa, shedding light on the places transformed by these developments as well as the personal narratives of those shaped by it. These anecdotes provide a glimpse of global urbanization at work on a regional level, asking what Chinese urbanism means for this rapidly urbanizing continent.

Justin Hui is an architect and visual artist. His work explores themes relating to land development, memory, absence, and globalization. In addition to photography, he uses mediums such as archival research, text, mapping, and found objects. He studied architecture at Cornell University with past experience at Herzog & de Meuron and Office for Metropolitan Architecture.