View in 「Everyday」：A review of 「Everyday」 exhibition

Read more：feature page of "Everyday" Group Photography Exhibition of Young Photographers from Home and Abroad

View in 「Everyday」

A review of the joint exhibition 「Everyday」 series by young photographers home and abroad

Author / Zhou Yang

Translator / Will

Since the invention of photography, camera has never stayed away from 「the distant」: as a loyal servant in expedition, scientific investigation and exploration; it also becomes an indispensable partner in tourists』 hands with the rising of mass tourism. While on the other side, especially since the 20th century, more and more photographers point at things around them using their cameras, just as John Szarkowski refers to in the William Eggleston』s Guide, 「View from the objective and historical perspective, the photographic masterpieces in the 20th century were all derived from what people call trivial and ordinary things」.

Certainly, daily life has always been the theme of vernacular photos, but it seems that even today, after numerous precedents, people still need to be persuaded to regard images showing one』s immediate living environment as some kind of 「serious」 artistic project. The joint exhibition 「Everyday」 series by young photographers from China and abroad hosted by www.photoint.net since 2015 can be seen as a kind of persuasive voice --- though the previous two years』 exhibitions have openly collected works themed on 「Reflection」 and 「Encounter」 respectively, the concept of 「Everyday」 always served as a framework, which to a great extent decided the works』 keynote. For the past two years, the 「Everyday」 series has presented more than 60 young photographers』 works from home and abroad. Regardless of the content, equipment and technique, these works mostly start from personal experience, memory or emotion, and extend to observations of modern youth and society. As a display 「aiming to make youth voice and discover new photography powers」, those whom the sponsor chooses are mostly potential budding young photographers. The proportion of half Chinese and half foreigners is also able to make audiences fully understand the similarities and differences of Chinese photographers between photographers in other countries, especially in other Asian countries in terms of focus and creative methods.

Homayra Adiba, Where Blue Birds Fly

View from the 2015 「Everyday - Observation」, though the works are all derived from daily lives, Chinese photographers focus more on 「inner self」, while overseas works are more based on down-to-earth narration. Words such as 「mood」, 「walking」, 「solitude」, and 「self-examination」 appear frequently in Chinese photographers』 statements, such as 「There are always some restless divisors rolling in your heart, which evolve to a variety of emotions afterwards」, or 「What I shoot are mostly unnoticed or dying things, for this reason, they are able to return to their true state of being」. These sentences concreted with beautiful words or full of philosophy read quite well, but they cannot be examined closely. These riddle-like images are worth viewing, but with also ambiguous captions, it』s like using one metaphor to explain another metaphor, which can only lead viewers to nowhere. Relatively speaking, the Bangladeshi photographer Homayra Adiba』s Where Blue Birds Fly also shows us some ambiguous photographs --- the deserted slippers in the sun, the hand sink covered with vegetation, and many shadows --- mysterious atmosphere permeates in these slightly indigo photos, while there are only a few words as caption, without quoting philosophers』 words or revealing hollow emotions. She just uses some plain words to portray moments related to roof in her memory, which explains the reason why photographers pay attention to roof, and also becomes an anchor point of photographs in the time dimension.

Mitsu Maeda, My Recollections

Many Chinese photographers emphasized the privacy of individual』s emotion, but among the 20 works in 2015』s 「Reflection」 screening, the projects really focused on people』s private lives were from two foreign photographers. They are Sarker Protick from Bangladesh and Mitsu Maeda from Japan, both of whom shot the lives of their aged grandparents. Around 2009, Maeda』s grandma started to have symptoms of dementia. The photographer didn』t know what to do and turned to her camera when she saw her grandma cried some unreasonable words for the first time. To Maeda, photography didn』t not only record life but also connected her grandma and her in a situation that normal communication could not go on. Her grandma went to a nursing home in 2012 and Maeda and her mother visited the grandma almost every day. During this period, the photographer kept on taking photos when the whole family got together, which featured many simple yet touching details in her shootings. Maeda said photography to her was 「a method to see details of lives/places calmly but emotionally.」 The shooting is still going on, featuring her grandma in all kinds of situations. In her photos, her grandma stares blankly in front of a mirror, or cries with closed eyes. The series also featured something without the appearance of her grandma, such as the moment when Maeda』s mother mediates alone in a room and some unknown scenery. The photographer accounted taking these photos for memorizing the 「the present」, otherwise, time will slip away. In other words, grandma is the reason why she decided to shoot the photos. The photos were all about a grandma in her eyes, which could explain why the series was named as My Recollections, rather than Grandma』s Recollections. My Recollections is consisted of a series of black and white photos. Some young photographers often take black and white photos with high contrast as a straw to clutch at when they failed in shooting proper photos. Yet Maeda wanted her photos to be moderate and honest, rather than strong. 「I take photos in black and white when I want the audience not to feel time and place from the images so much,」 she said.

Sarker Protick, What Remains

Likewise, Sarker Protick also turned to taking photos when words failed him during his visits to his frail grandparents. To him, photography is a method to length his stays, through which he explored how the two old people faced aging. He named the series What Remains, in which he used high exposures that make people and things look as if they will disappear in white light. It also reminds people of waiting at the heaven』s gate. His minimalistic images wouldn』t intimidate viewers with the perspective of death, nor tried to get sympathy. They simply let people meditate and think about how to go on living after death and lost. In 2015, Protick won a World Press Photo award, 2nd Prize in Daily life, for the series What Remains. Compared to the award, the worthier reward to the photographer was the finding of the lost intimacy with his grandparents. During an interview with The New Yorker, Protick said he ended the shooting when his grandma passed away. Although he visited his grandpa every week, he did not need to use taking photos to pass the time when he stayed with the old man. 「Sometimes, photography gives you more than a photograph,」 he said.

Zhang Yi, Photos On A Hill

The works presented at the 「Everyday-Encounter」 in 2016 extended to 43 groups. It』s a pleasure to see more Chinese photographers conduct the documentary shooting by taking hometown or memory of the homeland as a starting pointing. Take ZHANG Yi』s Back Mountain and YOU Wenhu』s Growth as examples. The work Growth was taken by YOU Wenhu when he was back to hometown Xihaigu of Ningxia province during the rainy season. The green and vitality from the picture shows a loess gully that we are not familiar with. With the advancing of ecological migration in Xihaigu, YOU』s hometown has become increasingly quiet. YOU used his camera to pursue the memory of his deceased grandmother and warm traces of the past. Importantly, YOU did not resort to the out-of-focus images to express his memory. Instead, he photographed real people, scenes, and objects. From his photos, we can feel that the photographer』s eyes full of emotion and each portrait with a clear focus disclose photographer』s intimate communications with his shooting objects. Beijing photographer ZHANG Yi lives at the foot of a mountain in the suburbs. The photo collected in Back Mountain was taken by him during his causal walks at the mountain from 2011 to 2014. At the first glance, these black-and-white images seem to be purely natural scenery, vegetation and rocks in different seasons, which were shot under the light of traditional aesthetic tastes. Gradually, the pictures show the traces of people, fences made of barbed wire and branches, seedlings planted in arrays, empty bottles arranged in the dividing line, and occasionally silhouette of someone on the phone. These are the lands occupied by the surrounding inhabitants, but ZHANG did not intentionally expose their "uncivilized" manner. Instead, he calmly looked at these people in a natural way, and left the judgment to the viewers.

You Wenhu, Growth

Even though physical exhibition has been included in the 2016, the slide show is still the major form of display in the "Everyday" series. Ideally, the display of photos accompanied with music is undoubtedly has many advantages. On the one hand, it makes the display break away from the restrictions of venue --- even if the audiences cannot see the display at the site, they can watch the works on the internet. On the other hand, it makes the photos go beyond the scope of pure visual experience, and the adding of auditory sense can enrich viewers』 perception of the works. Many years ago, Magnum Pictures launched a series of "Magnum in Motion」 multimedia/streaming media project, accompanied with original music from the shooting area and smooth editing rhythm, which enable people to watch them over and over again without being bored. However, it is undeniable that to show the still photos in the video form is a paradox. After all, photo as a slice of solidification of the time and reality, and static is the fundamental attribute of photography, not to mention that most photographers do not have a dynamic production team as Magnum Pictures. On the question of how to make photos move, majority of photographers choose to do a simple switch or stack of photos by one after another, while some do the push and pull or panning within the photos, though the move seems quite tedium. The background music selected is often played with string instruments. The slow rhythm is much easier for photographers to master when they make their first attempt on editing. However, after continuous viewing, it will produce hypnotic effect. Recently, themed on "Everyday - Images of Heart", the third photography exhibition of young photographers from China and abroad began its collection activity. Perhaps, with experiences accumulated from the previous two years, a new group of photographers can have an in-depth thought about the relations among music, dynamic effects, and photos, so as to present more matured multimedia works.

Zhou Yang, an MA graduate in Photojournalism at the University of Westminster in UK, is now living in Shanghai. He is a translator, independent photographer, and external teacher of photography courses at the School of Journalism and Communication, Shanghai International Studies University. He is taking individual photos with focuses on age, heritage, and memory.

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