Photographing China II

Pentax KS-1 with 1:2,4/35mm lens and two LED panels mounted on a tripod. I trigger the shutter with a remote control. Not the most professional setup, but it gets the job done surprisingly well.

And this is what really brought me to China: Photographing old periodicals in the libraries of Shanghai. The main objective this time? Xinwen zhaopian (news photos), a catalog published by the Xinhua News Agency twice every week, for newspapers, magazins and other work units of the media sphere to select and order pictures from. It covers the period from 1958 to 1987 with barely a gap inbetween and is as close to the “photographic mainstream” during those years as you can get.

Photographing China

Me in Qingdao, late February 2017. Photo taken by Ni Shaofeng.

After short stays in Yukuhashi and Qingdao I finally arrived in Shanghai to undertake some research, namely to collect more source material for my thesis. (more on this in a few days) I hope to find some time for my own photography here too, but we will see how that turns out.

Facetten des Erinnerns/Facets of Memory

Unacknowledged by the art community or society at large, in November 2016 Hamburg saw the first large scale exhibition of an art project to tackle the public memory — or lack therof — of the traumatic “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”, unleashed by Mao Zedong in 1966. As far as I know, the project initiated by Ni Shaofeng, in which he and his friend Deng Huaidong appropriated propaganda photos made during the Cultural Revolution and transformed them into disfigured large scale ink installations and oil paintings, was the first of its kind in the world.

I was lucky to be able to accompany most of the preparatory work leading up to the exhibition with my camera. Now that all the films have been developed and the negatives sorted, I want to share the impressions I captured of the exhibition.

You can find my photos documenting the exhibition here, or through the menu of this homepage.

 

Aura of Life in Motion

Some plants with an “Aura” near the tracks of Hasselbrook S-Bahn station.

Stumbled upon this some time in autumn of last year when waiting for the train. At first I couldn’t figure out what made this strange auras appear on the wall behind the small plants, but an arriving train showed clearly how it happens: The sudden movement of air caused by passing trains makes the plants swing back and forth, which keeps the dirt and grime normally staining the concrete wall from settling in the places touched by the plants.

Ni Shaofeng, painter

The painter Ni Shaofeng.

In the last months of 2016 I had the chance to help Ni Shaofeng set up his exhibition “Facetten des Erinnerns” (facets of memory) which tackled the difficult memory of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the 50th anniversary of which was also last year.

With close access to both the artist and the preparatory work leading up to the exhibition, I didn’t miss the chance to document it all on film. With over 340 exposed negatives, I’m still busy sorting through them in the evenings. I’m nearing the end though, hope to get the finished photos up here around the middle of February.

For some impressions of the exhibition, the official homepage is a good start:

Greatculturalrevolution.com

There is also my own coverage of the preparatory work on the exhibition here.