Four Gazes — Chinese Photography Today

Photographers depicting contemporary China capture the transformation of cities and personal memories with delicacy. In this collection, we explore the unique visual worlds built by four photographers, through their gazes. These are not mere records, but experimental traces of their confrontations with the world.

01

Ke Peng: Salt Ponds

Born in Hunan and raised in Shenzhen, Ke Peng has long gazed at the fragile boundaries created by rapid urbanization. Salt Ponds is a record of the delicate emotions lurking within the hustle of the city. Through the motif of fish in a pond, it quietly brings to the surface the psychology of people who depend on the system of the city while being confined within it. It is a sincere attempt to awaken senses that are easily lost in contemporary society.

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02

Ma Hailun: Uruklyn

Ma Hailun grew up in Urumqi, Xinjiang, and later went to a school of visual arts in New York. The cultural resonance between these two cities became the origin of her work. Uruklyn is a visual experiment in rediscovering her hometown through the filter of fashion photography. Going beyond postcard-like scenery, it records a multilayered, vivid Xinjiang, layered over her own identity.

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03

Lahem: 寺背 (Sibei)

Born in 1984, Lahem spent his boyhood in Sibei Village, in the mountains of southern Jiangxi. This book, Sibei, gathers his deep gaze toward his hometown over 14 years. In this village, located on the Hakka people's southward migration route, he set aside the artist's viewpoint and immersed himself as part of the cycle of time and life. The scratches and uneven colors left on the film are the traces of the journey he travelled.

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04

You Li: All That Is

For You Li, based in Shenyang, photography is not narrative but an act of recording personal experience. The images gathered in All That Is refuse logic and classification. Through the act of releasing the shutter, she scoops up her own memories and hallucinations, and the very experience of “seeing”. What the reader confronts is not the narrative of the images, but the question of how the act of “seeing” came to be, in a given moment.

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