The Connections by Marcelo Duhalde

The Central Committee is the most important leadership body in China's politics; within this committee, the 24-member Politburo is elected, who represents the pinnacle of power. Our first step was to compose a list of relevant politicians in the decision-making echelons of the Chinese government. A list of around 370 members was prepared, including their full name, current position in the government, previous positions and level of education.

As our database grew, we added more and more. Relationships, connections, chronologies, projections - we performed a deeper investigation into the political history of each of the leaders to present a complete, coherent picture.

This growing complexity demanded an efficient way to visualise the information, to display a massive amount of data simply and intuitively. At every iteration of the connections map, functional and interactive mock-ups were built and tested on various screen sizes and browsers.

"The Connections" exemplifies what a databank should be - not telling a story like any other visual article, but a tool to gather dispersed data and organize it into an efficient visual information system. The piece intends to showcase all the polit bureau members of the party in their different career stages linked to other party members and also among themselves, the result is a complete and explanatory map of the current political power in China