Photo Essay: At Yulv, Urban Villagers Create Another World

November 17th, 2024:

In Shenzhen, the skyline rises with glass and steel, but just beneath the city’s shiny surface, Yulv village remains a hidden world—a cluster of narrow alleys and cramped apartments surrounded by modernity. The workers of Yulv, mostly women, pass through these alleys after long hours in the nearby textile factories. These spaces between village buildings are measured in steps, but not defined by it.

Yulv is a paradox: a village within a city, a world within a world, enclosed by the very developments that make it invisible. It’s a place where gender roles are upended, where women, drawn to factory work for its steady pay, are the primary breadwinners. The men—fathers, husbands, sons—take on domestic roles, raising children, running family shops, managing the home front. In this inversion of traditional roles, strength takes on new forms.

Yulv’s decades-old buildings might not stand the sifting sands of time. But the village’s real strength lies not in its physical form, but in its people—their daily struggles, small triumphs, and the unspoken ties that bind them together. It’s a community where every gesture, every exchange, and every shared moment reflects a deeper sense of belonging, one that persists in the shadows of the city’s towering progress.

At 5:30 P.M., the factory whistle signals the end of another grueling shift. Nicknamed after plum blossom, Mei (32), center, heads home with her colleagues, her makeup a quiet defiance against exhaustion. “We’ll return to work 40 minutes from now,” she says, “for overtime, for the additional money. If there’s work all seven days in a week, I’ll work seven days a week. For the money.”

Mei, center right, walks arm in arm with her friends from the factory, a diverse group including 15 year-olds and 50 year-olds alike. "When we cross the road," Mei proudly says, "our group is twice as wide as the crosswalk’s white stripes." In the noise and shadow cast by the nearby urban center, they are as large and as loud as they want to be.

The men of Yulv take on domestic duties. A rural-to-urban migrant, Zhou (28), right, navigates the maze-like streets of the village to purchase fresh vegetables and eggs for his family, his face lighting up when his friend Liu (25) mentions a new grocery store selling fish mint, a plant from his Yunnan hometown. For Zhou, these small moments of connection to his roots remind him that he is still alive.

Liu (10) may be young, but she’s already a familiar figure among Yulv villagers. She has been helping her family harvest chili peppers since the age of six. Every time Zhou walks past her family’s store, he stops to say hello.

As night falls, Li (31) brings his two-year-old daughter out for a ride on her new scooter. “If your mother didn’t work overtime,” Li explains to his daughter, “we couldn’t afford this scooter.”

At the boundary of Yulv village, where the urban skyline casts a looming shadow, residents gather at food carts after the twilight hours. For those who live in the heart of Shenzhen’s urban village, what lies beyond the road feels like another world. As Mei waits for her chow mein, she contemplates: “Beyond this road, it’s a world that’s multiple worlds apart from ours.”

Taking a bird’s-eye view of Shenzhen’s urban landscape, the Yulv village (center left) is indeed as different from the rest of Shenzhen as it can be.

Artist's Statement:

When I set out to document the lives of the Yulv villagers, I wanted to portray a community often invisible in the larger narrative of Shenzhen’s rapid urbanization. Urban villages like Yulv are liminal spaces—caught between the pressures of their rural past and urban future. The residents, mostly migrant workers, are essential to Shenzhen’s industrial machinery, yet their lives are largely ignored by the broader public.

The decision to photograph the backs of the community members was a deliberate one. The people of Yulv, when approached, expressed discomfort at the idea of being photographed. Many were concerned about being seen in a photo essay that might perpetuate the stereotype of their community as a “blight.” By focusing on their backs, I intended to preserve their dignity and privacy while preserving the essence of their lives. The backs, often overlooked, carry the weight of their daily struggles—their labor, their resilience, their identity.

In creating this photo essay, I sought to highlight the small moments that make up the daily life of this village. The brief exchanges, the shared burdens, the quiet strength—these elements speak volumes about the humanity of Yulv’s residents, whose stories often go untold. Each photograph and caption in this essay builds on the idea that while these people may be invisible to the larger city around them, they are visible to one another. They are a community, alive with connection, determination, and pride, despite the physical and symbolic walls that separate them from the world beyond.

This work is an exploration of life at the margins—where survival is marked by resilience, where the community is built on the quiet strength of those who make it through each day. The back of a person may seem inconspicuous, but it tells a story nonetheless.