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China Stories
Harvey Benge, Neuseeland
Øyvind Hjelmen, Norwegen
Ferit Kuyas, Schweiz
Pok Chi Lau, USA
7. September – 5. Oktober 2008
Eröffnung: Sa. 6.9.2008, 20 h
Einführung: Peter V. Brinkemper
Harvey Benge - China Story
Eine Erzählung in Projektionsform - 106 Einzelbilder zusammengestellt
in Dyptichen. Die Geschwindigkeit des Wandels im Alltag erfordert
eine Transformierung und nicht eine Verdrängung der Vergangenheit.
Benge sucht diese Brüche, findet aber auch Harmonien –
eine visuelle Stadtanthropologie.
www.harveybenge.com
Øyvind Hjelmen - Journey Elsewhere
Schwarzweiß-Kontakte, persönlich empfundene Impressionen
einer ersten Reise durch China. Ein Spiel mit der Schärfe und
Unschärfe der Eindrücke, atmosphärisch dichte Wahrnehmungen
unterwegs in Stadt und Land.
www.oyvindhjelmen.com
Ferit Kuyas - City of Ambition
Großformatige Stadtlandschaften erfassen Chongqing, eine der
größten Städte der Welt, in ihrem rasanten ökonomischen
Wandel. Kulissenartige, fast surreale, Outskirts lassen die City
von Chongquing, in deren Umkreis 32 Mill. Menschen leben, nur erahnen.
www.feritkuyas.com
Pok Chi Lau – China 1979 -1982 - Post Chairman Mao Period
1969 emigriert Lau von Hongkong nach USA, studiert Fotografie und
dokumentiert das Leben in den Chinatowns. Seit 30 Jahren hält
er bei Besuchen in China die Veränderungen im Land fest. Die
s/w Arbeiten, entstanden 1979-85, zeigen Überreste der Slogans
und Zeichen von Mao und Kulturrevolution.
www.pokchilau.com
Harvey Benge - China Story
My pictures explore the strange anthropology of cities. The unusual
and overlooked in the human landscape. I am asking the viewer to
question the idea that photographs as documents are complete representations
of subject. I'm interested in the universality of life and the idea
of parallel lives - when one thing is happening here, something
else is happening over there. The democracy of non-places fascinates
me, in the knowledge that inevitably nothing is as it seems.
There is something that always hits you in any city and becomes
a sort of visual leitmotif. These are series I made in 2006 and
2007 when I was a guest at the Pingyao Festival in Shanxi Province
China.
The book: China Story just arrived fresh from press.
www.harveybenge.com
Øyvind Hjelmen - Journey Elsewhere
In December 2007, I travelled through China. To me China is a truly
exotic place — with its wild natural beauty, and different
peoples and customs, and richly complex man-made environments loaded
with contrasts and history. And when I travel to such a place, my
photographs are not meant to show what China looks like.
Instead, I try to note my impressions of little bits of grace and
surprise that I discover day by day. One may ask, is such a journey
really a journey elsewhere, or is it just a journey going deeper
within oneself? To be honest, I think both ideas are true, and they
nourish each other. The heightened awareness that quite naturally
comes with travel to foreign lands helps me to learn to look at
more familiar surroundings with new delight and awe.
www.oyvindhjelmen.com
Ferit Kuyas - City of Ambition
This is a visit to one of the largest cities in the world, Chongqing,
populated by roughly 32 million people. The city is located in Southwest
China region of Sichuan. Chongqing was the capital of China during
World War II.
Like most of my work also this project has autobiographic roots:
I got to know the city through my in-law-family who lives there
and makes me feel at home.
I am mainly interested in the outskirts of Chongqing, where the
city can’t be really seen but sensed, like a tiger moving through
the jungle – invisible, yet there. Construction sites and places
of change show metaphorical facets of the huge changes taking place
in contemporary China. After many travels it seems like the more
I learn the less I know.
www.feritkuyas.com
Pok Chi Lau – China 1979 -1982 - Post Chairman Mao Period
"After doing this work for over 30 years I am lost for words
as for a statement of work. I live in my work, and I escape from
it every once in a while to see what I am up to. The context is
so complex because it is not about what I have done, but my perception
of the world of China in her contemporary history, most of which
gets lost in translation."
When Lau was 19 and living in Hong Kong, his parents borrowed enough
money to pay for two cameras, a plane ticket and college tuition.
He studied at the Brooks Institute of Photography and the California
Institute of the Arts. Beginning in the late 1970s, Lau traveled
from one Chinatown to the next documenting the lives of Chinese
immigrants working at mines, railroads, laundries and restaurants
and often living in cramped conditions.
Slideshow - Pok Chi Lau "China 1979-2005 Asian-Americans"
www.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/chilau/index.html
www.pokchilau.com
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