Snapshots

They have shot to fame as the photographers of Chinese fashion and contemporary art. In Beijing, Shanghai and Hong-Kong, 3 figures of the visual avant-garde capture a China in the throes of an aesthetic revolution. From photo shoots with favourite actrice Fan Bingbing, to the glamour photos of GQ China - welcome to the studios where the future canons of Chinese beauty are being revealed.

All-nighters, romantic wanderings, a trend for laziness: the young Chinese generation is in search of itself. Born into a consumer society, this generation straddles yesterday’s society that was rooted in collectiveness, and tomorrow’s society that is much more individualistic. Photographers follow these young people in their personal lives. Black and white Snapshots from the Birdhead collective in a festive and melancholic Shanghai, and the introspection of the precocious Chen Zhe, who shatters the sacrosanct notion of filial piety. They are all fighting to fulfil their dreams and conquer their fears, at the heart of a first-time quest for identity in China – discovering the individual.

Chinese urban and rural landscapes are changing at a frantic pace. From the banks of the Yellow River converted into an amusement park, to the towers of Canton forming the new Manhattan of Asia, to the mountain villages of the Yunnan inhabited by the last ethnic minorities, photographer-documentalists portray a China in mid-metamorphosis - a vast, chaotic building site, and at the same time, the showcase of an ultra-modern empire.

The China of the excluded, as seen by “lawyers” in the field. Rampant pollution, colossal differences in wealth, massive rural exodus, the first “AIDS villages” etc.… 2 photojournalism pioneers, Lu Guang and Zhang Xinmin, sift through the sombre reality of “hypergrowth”, while Liu Zheng, one of the leading names in contemporary Chinese photography, reflects on the ills of a civilisation that is prepared to wipe out the past. The China of the excluded, as seen by “lawyers” in the field.