20/12/2023
As part of this year’s Jimei-Arles Festival, a notable exhibition is a set of four photographs from Feng Jianguo’s 2003 project “Traveling Road to the East”.
According to the side information provided by the organisation “Feng Jianguo is Professor, Doctoral Supervisor, Department of Information Art and Design, Academy of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University. He is also a member of the Photographic Art Committee of the China Photographers Association. In 2006, he earned an award for his “Outstanding Contribution to China’s Photography since the Founding of the PRC” by the China Photographers Association. In 2012, he won the 9th Golden Statue Award for China Photography jointly presented by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the China Photographers Association.
“Since 1996, Feng Jianguo has been using an 8x10-inch large-format Camera and black-and-white film to shoot the series of works entitled
“Traveling Road to the West.” Photography is a unique way of viewing the world. An old and heavy camera and the somewhat clumsy but ritualistic way of viewing the world brought by it correspond exactly to his dream-seeking state of mind and pilgrimage rituals in Western China. Through his skillful control of large-format black-and-white photography, based on which he seeks to use the most concise method to achieve a photographic expression that is “straight from the heart,” Feng has been continuously exploring the philosophical subject of photographic creation.”