Growing Up With Shanghai: Wenmiao Lu | 与沪成长 : 文庙路

Part of the Growing Up With Shanghai series.

Growing Up With Shanghai is a social sound project that documents the culture and people of Shanghai during the city’s development boom in the 1990s. The project follows 30-40 year old Shanghainese young adults- whose own personal development was also during a time when Shanghai was beginning its transformation into the metropolis we see today. What began as a personal project for me, became an outlet that Shanghainese could document their life and culture in their own personal way. Subtle details within their stories document local customs and dialects and touch on contemporary social issues such as remigration and urban development.

The stories are recorded in the location where they occurred not only to help the storytellers recall their memories, but also to provide a complementary backdrop for their not so distant past. The stories encompass the entire Shanghai Municipality to also document the Shanghai culture beyond its city limits. The goal for this project is to record 100 people.

Walking through their memories, each story brings you closer to the city. The more stories that are recorded, the more meaningful the connection with the city becomes. Each street now has a face and life to it making you a part of someone’s life. These streets are never going to be the same to you again.

Every recording has a digital booklet produced that includes hand-drawn route maps, photos, Shanghainese character and Mandarin transcriptions, and English translations of the audio as a guide for people to ideally follow on location, or anywhere they may be.

I hope that you enjoy your experience of this project and that one day your imagination leads you here.

"与沪成长"是一个社会声音艺术项目，记录了上海在20世纪90年代蓬勃发展时期的城市文化和人。这个项目跟随30-40岁上海本地年轻人的脚步，记录他们的成长故事。这些年轻人的个人成长时期正是上海发展成为现在的大都市的转型初期。这原本只是我的一个个人项目，而后成为上海本地人可以以他们自己的方式记录他们的生活和文化的媒介。他们分享的故事里的各种微妙细节记录了当地风俗和地方方言，也提及了包括再移民和城市发展在内的一些当代社会议题。

这些故事的收音都是在它们真实发生的地方完成，不仅可以帮助故事分享者重新拾起记忆，还可以基于他们还未远去的记忆基础上提供背景的补充。这些故事足迹踏遍整个上海市，也记录了超越城市界限的上海文化。这个项目目标是收录100个故事的声音。

一路跟随分享者的记忆，每个故事都拉近了我们和这座城市的距离。随着收录的故事越来越多，项目本身和这座城市之间的联结也有了更多的意义。每一条街道像长出了一张脸，有了生命，将你和其他人的生活联系了起来，成为他们的一部分。这些街道于你也不再像从前一样，有了新的样子。

每一个收录的录音都会制成一个电子版书册，其中包括手绘路线图、照片、上海话及普通话文本以及音频的英文翻译，为来自世界不同地方的人提供指引，帮助人们更好地跟随每一个收录地点的故事路线。

我希望你可以喜欢这个项目带来的体验，说不定有一天，你也可以跟着想象实地走一遭。如果你希望与沪成长也能收录你的故事，请联系我们。

*A Bivouac Recording project