China’s Fast Track: Photographs by Tony Law

Last year 24-year-old photographer Tony Law won a Fulbright grant to document the modernization of China. “China right now is going through a period of very, very rapid growth,” he says. “The whole country is changing ten times faster than the natural evolution of a country.” Law captured signs of development in four of China’s biggest cities—Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou—where the most drastic changes are taking place. Here, he says, “China is redefining itself to the rest of the world. I was trying to investigate how they’re building their cities, their environment, and through that what image they’re trying to project to the rest of the world. China has always expressed itself with its architecture—look at the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. The energy there now is of a new place being created and of prosperity.”