Zhang Xiao: Community Fire

Name: Zhang Xiao: Community Fire
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SKU: 9781597115452
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Summary

Zhang Xiao: Community Fire explores the vibrant intersection of art and community within Chinese culture. Through Zhang Xiao's lens, the book captures daily life and local traditions, weaving together vivid imagery that reflects the essence and spirit of distinct communities in China. It presents a journey through cultural landscapes, offering the reader an engaging visual narrative.
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Format: Hardback

$115⁰⁰

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Zhang Xiao: Community Fire

$115⁰⁰

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you're fascinated by contemporary photography that captures the vibrant essence of community life in China. It combines striking visuals with cultural insight, offering a unique perspective on everyday moments and the people who create them, perfect for those interested in modern art and society.

Description

In his project Community Fire, the photographer Zhang Xiao takes a local, hometown look at Shehuo, a Chinese Spring Festival tradition celebrated in rural Northern Chinese communities that includes temple fairs, dragon dances, and storytelling.

Shehuo - literally, 'community fire' - is devoted to the worship of land and fire and boasts a history of many thousands of years. During the festival, people hold ceremonies, pray for the next year's good harvest, and confer blessings of peace and safety on all family members. However, what was once a heterogeneous cultural tradition with myriad regional variations has largely become a tourist-facing, consumption-oriented enterprise. In the early 2000s, Shehuo received an 'intangible cultural heritage' designation from the People's Republic of China, resulting in increased funding in exchange for greater government involvement. While altering the practitioners' relation to Shehuo, this change expresses itself most visually in the way costumes and props have been replaced with newer, cheaper products from online shopping websites.

Zhang's colourful and fantastical photographs capture how these mass-produced substitutions have transformed the practice of Shehuo. Community Fire - with essays in English and Chinese - is a dynamic visual exploration of one of China's oldest traditions.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781597115452

Publisher: Aperture

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 10 August 2023

Country: United States

Imprint: Aperture

Edition: Bilingual edition

Illustration: 150 four-color images

Contributors:

Photographs by Xiao Zhang
Text by Ning Ou
Text by Ilisa Barbash
Text by Xiao Zhang
Designed by Studio Victor Balko

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 22.0mm

Width: 180.0mm

Height: 235.0mm

Weight: 793g

Pages: 192

Collections

Arts & Culture Non-Fiction

About the Author

Zhang Xiao (born in Yantai city, Shandong Province, China, 1981) graduated from the department of architecture and design at Yantai University in 2005. He was a photojournalist for Chongqing Morning Post from 2005 to 2009. He won the Prix HSBC pour la Photographie in 2011, the Three Shadows Photography Award in 2010, and the Hou Dengke Photography Award in 2009. Zhang has participated in several solo and group exhibitions, including at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Switzerland; Lianzhou Photography Museum, Guangdong Province, China; Shanghai Center of Photography; Musee du Quai Branly, Paris; and A4 Art Museum in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province. His books include Shanxi (2013), Coastline (2014), They (2014), The River (2017) and A Hometown (2021). Zhang currently lives and works in Chengdu. He is the 2018 winner of the Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University.

Ou Ning (born in Suixi, Guangdong province, China, 1969) is the director of the documentaries San Yuan Li (2003) and Meishi Street (2006). He was chief curator of the Shenzhen and Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (2009); jury member of 8th Benesse Prize at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009); member of the Asian Art Council at the Guggenheim, New York (2011); founding chief editor of the literary journal Chutzpah! (2010-2014); founder of the Bishan Project (2011-2016); visiting professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (2016-2017); and senior research fellow of the Center for Arts, Design, and Social Research, Boston (2019-2022). His most recent book is Utopia in Practice: Bishan Project and Rural Reconstruction (2020).

Ilisa Barbash is curator of visual anthropology at Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. She is codirector of the films In and Out of Africa (1992) and Sweetgrass (2009). Barbash is the author of Where the Roads All End: Photography and Anthropology in the Kalahari (2016), which was awarded the John Collier Jr. Award for Still Photography.