36 Kilometres: From Home to Work从家到公司 36 公里

At the end of 2020, I moved from central Guangzhou to a suburban district approximately 36 kilometres from my workplace and 50 kilometres from the city centre. The area is often described as a “sleeping city”: every morning, large numbers of residents leave for work across Guangzhou; at night, they return along similar routes to rest before the cycle begins again. Located at the urban periphery, it functions as a vast space for accommodating bodies exhausted by labour and commuting.

When I first moved there, I felt disappointed. The surrounding apartment blocks, roads, shopping centres, and public facilities appeared ordinary and repetitive, with little of the visual appeal conventionally associated with urban life. My own routine became equally fixed: leaving the residential compound each morning, travelling for more than an hour by metro, arriving at my desk, and retracing almost the same route at night. Gradually, the 36 kilometres between home and work became the basic scale through which I understood the city.

During these repeated journeys, I began to observe scenes that were easily overlooked: residential buildings illuminated at night, silent commuters inside metro carriages, delivery riders propelled through the streets by successive orders, temporary resting places used by sanitation workers, and the everyday activities of suburban residents within limited public spaces. These people and places rarely contain dramatic events, yet together they sustain the city’s daily operation.

36 Kilometres: From Home to Work consists of several interconnected photographic projects. Through long-term observation, fixed viewpoints, sequential photography, image stitching, and written notes, I extend a personal commuting experience into an examination of life at the urban periphery. The 36 kilometres represent both a measurable geographical distance and a social route passing through housing, labour, transportation, and rest.

The series considers how the city distributes space, time, and physical bodies, as well as how people construct their lives within repetitive institutional rhythms. Photography becomes a method of redistributing attention: pausing at places that are repeatedly passed yet rarely examined, and observing how the structure of the city becomes visible through ordinary moments.

2020年底，我从广州市区搬到距离公司约36公里、距离市中心约50公里的郊区。这里常被称为“睡城”：清晨，大量居民离开社区前往城市各处工作；夜晚，他们沿着相似的路线返回，在这里休息、睡眠，再开始第二天的循环。它如同城市边缘的一处容纳空间，持续接收被工作和通勤消耗的身体。

刚搬到这里时，我感到失望。周围的住宅、道路、商场和公共设施大多普通而重复，与传统意义上具有吸引力的城市景观相距甚远。我的日常也变成一条固定路线：早晨离开小区，乘坐一个多小时的地铁到达工位；晚上，再穿过相同的车站和街道回家。家与公司之间的36公里，逐渐成为我理解城市的基本尺度。

在反复通勤的过程中，我开始将注意力转向沿途容易被忽略的场景：夜晚仍然亮着灯的住宅，地铁车厢中沉默的下班者，被订单推动着穿过道路的骑手，清洁工人短暂休息的角落，以及郊区居民在有限公共空间中的日常活动。这些人物和场所缺少戏剧性的事件，却共同构成了城市运行的基础。

《从家到公司36公里》由多个相互关联的摄影项目组成。我通过长期观察、固定视角、连续拍摄、图像拼接和文本记录，将个人通勤经验延伸为对城市边缘生活的考察。36公里既是一段可以测量的地理距离，也是一条穿过居住、劳动、交通与休息的社会路径。

这组作品关注城市如何分配空间、时间与人的身体，也关注人们如何在重复的制度节奏中建立自己的生活。对我而言，摄影成为一种重新分配注意力的方法：把目光停留在那些频繁经过、很少被注视的地方，并尝试理解城市如何在这些普通时刻中显露自身。