Alain Delorme’s Totems photo series explores the towering and soaring elements he found in Shanghai’s urban spaces. Even at first glance, we certainly have no desire to exchange places with the imperturbable cyclist, stoically pedalling such outsized loads along the streets to earn his daily wage. A real Sisyphean task.

It seems nothing short of miraculous that the wobbly pile of tyres has neither tipped over nor crushed the trailer under its weight. Evidently with complete faith in the ropes holding the load together, the cyclist does not waste a thought on such speculations. The pile of tyres finds its architectural equivalent in the tower block complex in the background on the right.

To cut off tourist sites from the older district, the city administration ordered the construction of the wall to separate these two worlds. Yet the tower block and tower of tyres have one thing in common – an obsession with greatness. Thiss seems to be associated with the high population density of this Chinese metropolis and the need to satisfy the requirements of a large number of people.

Alain Delorme’s series is titled Totems – which may seem a little confusing. Often, totems are imagined as plants or animals protecting their owners or enabling them to tap into a life force. In some cultures, handmade artisan objects can also serve as totems. In Delorme’s series of photographs, the bikes, trailers and nightmarish mountains of transported goods take on a totemic character.

Against a background of modern architecture, the cyclist with his piles of tyres seems to come from a different time, a representative of a culture of small tradespeople isolated from the Moloch of the city.