Modern Shanghai is a decade-long photographic project by photographer Chen Ronghui, produced between 2015 and 2024. Drawing inspiration from renowned cultural scholar Leo Ou-fan Lee’s masterpiece Shanghai Modern, the artist embarks on a visual urban exploration of the city with a large-format camera.

Adopting a calm and restrained perspective, the series portrays Shanghai’s complex temperament of intertwined old and new, as well as integrated Eastern and Western cultures. It captures sharp contrasts between historic buildings and redeveloped blocks, commercial landmarks and suburban fringes, consumer fantasies and authentic daily life.

Focusing on migrant laborers, drifters and ordinary residents amid urban renewal, the photographs record their real living conditions and subtle inner emotions. Through artificial landscapes, intimate private spaces and street scenes, the work reflects on consumerism and urban modernization, uncovering the hidden truths and overlooked realities beneath the city’s glamorous surface.