The other day I asked a friend to critique my photos. He didn’t like the “Found Objects” series because he understands photography to be a process of discovering what is there, rather than imposing myself onto the landscape. My husband countered that he liked “Found Objects” precisely because they constituted a moral evaluation of the landscape; for him, the point of photography was to insert the artist’s perspective into the work (rather than perspective as reflected through “discovery”).
Another friend has asked why my photographs of Shenzhen are primarily in black and white, and cold. She wondered how adding color to the images would change the feeling of Shenzhen. Her questions echo those of another friend who wondered why my pictures of Shenzhen weren’t pretty, while my photos of Berlin were.
On Saturday, September 17, 2005 I will be showing some of my work as part of “Language Materializes,” a workshop organized by Fat Bird Theatre and hosted by Raw Studio, a collective of architects interested in new ways of conceptualizing and building urban space(s). “Language Materializes” is the name of a series of writings by Yang Qian. The project, however, brings together independent works by Yang Qian, dancer Liu Hongming, architect Ma Yuan, composer Yang Jie, and myself. None of these works have been developed together. The point, in bringing them together, is to see the connections that juxtaposition inevitably brings, and stimulate discussion on how meaning is made through art and everyday life.
So I’ve been listening to all this feedback with a different ear. Sometime this week, I have to go print some photos and get them ready to hang. And I’m not sure of the kind of presentation I want. Do I go with discovery? Or judgment? Or perhaps color? I’ve been thinking of doing something highly anthropological and presenting a photo essay on the Houhai land reclamation project, which is visible from the Raw Studio windows. We could all look at the pictures, look out the window, and talk about what we remember of the older coastline…
In the meantime, I am posting some colorful discoveries of Houhai, which I took yesterday morning: http://pics.livejournal.com/maryannodonnell/gallery/0000cd53
Shenzhen Noted 