Expression ·Memory: City Image In My Phone Lens

City, the product of modernization, tells stories of progress and prosperity. It signals the human society marching into a mature and civilized stage and represents the supreme form of social life. A story unfolds with a simple facial expression of some city-dweller, making his or her way through high-rise buildings and busy traffic. But a city is not just about that. When we enjoy all the convenience granted by the advanced civilization and satisfy our endless desires with high technology, we tend to let the most ordinary people and things around us pass by unnoticed.

Time and space are constantly changing, and photograph is the moment-by-moment slice of this ever changing process. I use mobile phone to record the people around and their expressions, so each picture has a story to tell, and these pictures, taken over a period of time, give life more layers and make it more majestic. This group of photos on display is a small part of a large number of photos I took by different mobile phones from iPhone 4S to Huawei Mate30 pro. They have all been post-processed into black-and-white because I want to factor out the quality of different mobile phones and make viewers focus on the quality of the photos and their visual impacts. This is also my way to commemorate, as many of the people and things captured in the photos may be just a once-in-a-lifetime encounter, or they may have departed, from the neighborhood, from the city, or even from the world. Looking at photos is one of the best ways to relive memory. As I pulled them out of my cell phones, I also invited them out of my memory. I was there, behind the lens, in each and every photo. They are part of me. When I look at them, I find it compelling to think about the past and the present.

City tells different stories from one moment to the next. Its expression never remains the same. Yet the meaning of photography and life is eternal.

Curator: Wang Yuwen