Around about this time I thought I would be in Sydney at the Head On photography festival, not in Shanghai with borders closed during a global pandemic. Moshe Rosenzweig and his team at Head On have pushed the printed exhibitions to November this year and have moved the festival itself online. They are the first international photography festival to do so.
People can still take part in workshops and view live artist talks by signing up at www.headon.com.au. Last week it was my turn to present Shanghai: Decadence with Chinese Characteristics. If you missed it, it is viewable on demand via the Head On website.
This is the final weekend that the festival will be live online, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, this is your last chance until it runs its print exhibition (and accompanying program) later this year (hopefully).
My preparation on the day was less than ideal. The day before I had been out most of the day at a picnic and then out to dinner so I did not really pay attention that my internet was down at home. The day of my talk, we found out that my two year internet contract had expired. Vanessa got on the phone to get it re-installed, but as it was unclear whether we would be reconnected before I had to give my talk, I scrambled to find a friend near by with a functioning internet connection. Australian photographer Jo Rankine (you can follow her on Instagram at bhutan_in_the_dragons_belly) came to the rescue and offered the use of her internet connection along with the dining room in the swanky garden villa she shares with her family in the former French Concession. This was an additional bonus since my lounge room looked like Beirut in the early 1980s with the detritus of luggage from a camping trip and that picnic strewn everywhere.
I had given a few talks and interviews on Shanghai: Decadence with Chinese Characteristics when I had shown it at the Ballarat International Foto Bienale, so I didn’t really prepare for my talk much. I think it went alright after I got started. It was great that people from all over the world were able to tune in. The first person to join the room was from Japan.
One thing I talked about was how crucial meeting Britta Battogtokh was to the project. I met her and her friend Julianna Mucsi, at the nightclub M1NT when I was waiting to meet Xifan Yang, a journalist I had been paired with for an assignment for German magazine GEO. Britta, who among other things was known for competing in beauty pageants as Miss Mongolia, noticed that I shot a detail of lipstick on her champagne glass next to her Dior handbag. I then started chatting with Britta and her friend and shot a couple of quick photos of them. Xifan’s story for the magazine ended up being based around Britta as we followed her from club to club. You can check out a video I shot during this assignment here:
https://www.davetaconphotography.com/videos/2014/10/14/geo-special-shanghai
Also, as luck would have it, Britta was made PR manager of a new high end nightclub called Linx. I was able to build on the series that became Shanghai: Decadence with Chinese Characteristics thanks to my connection to Britta. This chance meeting also probably influenced me to travel to Mongolia to cover the country’s mining bust. Britta’s local connections were a huge help here too.
Although Mongolia less than 3.3 million people, some Mongolian expatriates saw the story in Germany, which helped raise Britta’s profile. She’s now in Italy recovering from a snowboarding accident and among other things, is an ambassador for solar energy.
Anyway, here are some of those pics I mentioned as well as some outtakes from the exhibition. I suppose I might look through all those thousands of nightlife photos again sometime and do another edit. Also here is shot from a random evening eight years ago when I went out to a terrible club called Club Gaga that happened to be holding a kissing contest.
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