Dafen Village Movie

all work ©2007 Richie Gelles
Dafen Village is an urban village in Shenzhen where most of the world's oil painting reproductions come from. It has become some bizarre cross between an art scene, tourist attraction, production workshop, and museum. The building at the end of the movie is the new Dafen Art Museum (designed by Urbanus Architecture and Design), which responds spatially to the urban village landscape. This video uses a technique I saw first in the video for RJD2's 1976, the idea is to essentially use still photos in motion in order to create the illusion of movement and depth. I created this with Henry Zeng for Urbanus Architecture and Design. The music is by Funk Empire. Keep an eye out for the over sized Mona Lisa landmark.