Luyao Shi

Urban Chaos describes the disordered power of nature. In this project, Luyao Shi travelled through the outskirts of the city as an observer, observing and recording how the plants, wildlife and other natural elements that grow there and in conflict with the human-constructed order. Luyao Shi wants to reflect on the relationship between human beings and nature and consider the rationality of order in this project. 

In 2019 I moved to London from China. As a photographer, I began to observe the area near my residence by taking photos . For a period of time, I could often hear a sound of an animal that I had never heard before at night. I was curious about these sounds and decided to go out to find the source of this one night. Not long after, a fox ran past me and disappeared into the darkness, and I realized that the cry must have come from the fox. 

After a period of observation, I found that in the area where the fox lives, in the suburbs of the city, a very subtle relationship has been formed between nature and human order. Suburbs are a transitional zone between urban and wild environments, the space here was being controlled by human beings to a certain extent but not fully monitored as in urban areas. In such a zone, nature and plants have taken on a unique status, from a macro view their growth area seems limited by humans, but a closer observation will find it more similar to their growth state in the natural environment . Combined together with fences, barbed wire, railings and walls a wild and strange zone emerges.

Wild animals inhabit this zone, traveling at night and breeding in hidden greenery. This state allowed me to sense an adversary relationship between wild chaotic natural forces and human order, and this hidden confrontation is the core of my project.

I've always had a degree of skepticism about the rationality of the strict order that humans have established on this planet, and I hope this project will provide some insights towards this.