In the early 20th century, Wuhan’s riverfront was divided into foreign concessions—British, French, Russian, German, and Japanese—each with its own architecture, administration, and commercial order. In 1992, the Hangang Building, developed by Hong Kong real estate tycoon Tse Chun Ming, became the city’s first commercial property project since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. It stood at a crossroads: between the colonial legacy etched into Wuhan’s fabric and the market reforms reshaping the mainland.

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This work traverses the building floor by floor, examining its materials and maintenance as an index of power. Glossy tiles, fluorescent lights, ordered signage, and security cameras reflect Hong Kong’s property aesthetic and its ideals of control. Patched plaster, exposed wiring, and handwritten notices reveal local improvisation—practical, provisional, and telling. These details are not neutral backdrops; they are sites where governance operates, labour is negotiated, and value is assigned.

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Framed vertically, the building becomes a temporal device. Each upward step traces the uneven junctions of colonial residue with reform‑era ambition, speculative capital with everyday use. The project resists spectacle, inviting viewers to recognise how the afterlives of empire persist—not in monuments, but in corridors, fixtures, and the hum of daily circulation.

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Here, passageways form an archive of postcolonial memory: modest, cumulative, and continually rewritten through use—quietly shaping the present’s conditions.