Photo pioneers capture urban life, ordinary people

\”Urban Sketch\” by Gu Zheng

The details, ironies, the grittiness and incidental moments of urban life have inspired photographers worldwide. But in China, it was only in the past two decades that ordinary life became a valid subject for photography.

Before then, it was landscapes, landscapes and landscapes.

\”Trace: Urban Photography in Shanghai\” displays the start of the urban photography movement in 1986 and its continuing influence on young photographers today.

The exhibition at the 1933 creative hub runs through April 4.

The movement started with an informal group of photographers who called themselves \”The Northern Stream Collective\” based in Beijing. These photography students and teachers were brought together by their shared boredom with mainstream taste for sweeping landscape photography.

Landscapes were the usual candidates for photography prizes. Chinese landscape photography has often been linked with traditional Chinese landscape painting.

They were also disillusioned with the limitations photojournalism, and proud of being unaffiliated to the media.

\”In the 1980s, Chinese photography was about taking photos, but we tried to find expressions of feelings with the camera,\” says Gu Zheng, one of the best-known members of the collective.

Against the backdrop of rapid urban development and intellectual ferment, the photographers found plenty of material. But they broke new ground not by addressing the big issues of the day, but by capturing the meaning of everyday life in its countless, transient moments.

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