Acceso usuarios
Jonathan Bach
This essay on Shenzhen, China, presents three vignettes addressing the question of homein a city of migrants. The first section explores the ubiquitous narratives of successforming the city’s foundational myth. The second follows this myth into the world of aShenzhen filmmaker and his characters, as they navigate the tension between the idea ofhome and the urge to start anew, resulting in the suspended possibility of the title. Thelast section looks at young architects who hope to preserve the city’s heterotopic sites ofmigrants and original villagers through architectural innovations. The cases show howan economy of desire supplements the political economy of this export-driven city. Thecity appears as an urban desiring machine that produces itself as an object of desire forthe migrants of all classes who flock to its factories, ‘urban villages’, white-collar jobs,luxury villas and underground economy. The essay is an encounter with the mythology ofsuccess and failure, the intertwining of home as an end and home as the beginning, andwith the manipulation of space that allows residents to control their own subjectivity.
