MA Visual Essay
Beijing Zoo Clothing Wholesale Market: Migration and Absence

My topic is about Beijing Zoo Wholesale Market, the migration and absence behind it. After 18 years of operation, the Beijing Zoo wholesale market was closed down in a sudden in 2017 which forced more than 2000 vendors to leave Beijing or move to suburb area around city. Behind the incident was governments intention to cut off population and upgrade its urban amenities, which led big wholesale markets become a target. Alongside the official documents, government described them as “low-end/quality population”. By tracing the migration of those vendors, I want to discuss the living context behind one simple policy through clothes. Also, how the correlation between wholesale market and city provides a hidden motivation to examine authority’s behaviours and social transformation.