Zhangzhou Development Zone is a planned “technological and economic development zone” on the outskirts of Xiamen and Zhangzhou. Like many such zones, it is characterised by rapid, large-scale construction alongside uneven occupancy: high volumes of unfinished, stalled, or sparsely inhabited real estate projects. Nearby, developments such as Shuangyu Island - envisioned as a luxury coastal resort - remain largely unrealised, hosting only partial or temporary uses.

The work draws on this context, extracting figures from the faded promotional hoardings that surround these unfinished or unrealised sites. Originally rendered as ideal future residents, these computer-generated bodies were designed to visualise prosperity, leisure, and community before their materialisation. Here, they are isolated, scaled to human size, and repositioned as figures to pose alongside.

A fabricated street sign names the space “Technology and Economy,” foregrounding the logics that organise the zone. Visitors are invited to step into a designated area and produce images with these speculative inhabitants. The work considers how visibility, circulation, and staged presence operate as forms of value within contemporary development, where images often precede—and sometimes outlast—lived reality.