‘What I’m Always Doing Is Escaping, Escaping, Escaping’
Liu Xia, widow of Liu Xiaobo, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 and died while in Chinese custody in 2017, has opened up to the public for the first time since she began a life of exile in Germany nearly a year ago. On May 4, in a dialogue...
‘I Can’t Sleep: Homage to a Uyghur Homeland’
In the 2000s, New York-based artist Lisa Ross traveled to the city of Turpan in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and photographed local people on the beds that they keep in their fields. The portraits in that series are currently on...
A Glimpse of Life along China’s Border with North Korea
When Elijah Hurwitz checked into the Hilton Garden Inn in Dandong, China, he knew his room would have an extraordinary view: The hotel sits near the banks of the Yalu River overlooking North Korea. Out the window, a caravan of trucks with North...
Love, Robots, and Fireworks
from Yuanjin PhotoIncluded in this Depth of Field column are stories of love, community, remembrance, and the future, told through the discerning eyes of some of China’s best photojournalists. Among them, the lives of African migrants in Guangzhou, seven years...
House Calls on the Tibetan Plateau, Children of Divorce, Celebrity Secrets
from Yuanjin PhotoIn the final galleries of 2016, the publishing juggernaut Tencent again shows its leadership in the documentary photography space, but iFeng’s choice to publish a personal photo gallery by Zhou Xin is also worth a good look, especially since...
Step Inside China’s Hellish, Illicit Steel Factories
Kevin Frayer's photographs of illegal Chinese steel factories look like postcards from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution
From West Africa, the Czech Republic, and Home
from Yuanjin PhotoIn this month’s Depth of Field, Chinese photojournalists explore foreign terrain, both beyond China’s borders and within them. Independent photographer Yuyang Liu traveled the open seas to document the lives of Chinese and African...
Living in China’s Expanding Deserts
People on the edges of the country’s vast seas of sand are being displaced by climate change
Tornados and Drag Queens
from Yuanjin PhotoBeing a photojournalist involves reacting to breaking news, a dedication to long-term projects, and everything in between. This month’s showcase of work by Chinese photographers published in Chinese media underscores this range of angles: from...
Meet ‘Depth of Field’: The Month’s Best Chinese Photojournalism
from Yuanjin PhotoWelcome to ChinaFile’s inaugural “Depth of Field” column. In collaboration with Yuanjin Photo, an independent photo blog published by photographers Yan Cong and Ye Ming on the Chinese social media platform WeChat, we will...
‘Eyes on China’: Illuminating Life Across a Changing Country
Two photographers living in China set up a collective Instagram account.
Showing Another Side of China - via Instagram
One night last spring, two veteran photojournalists working in Beijing came up with an interesting idea.
20 Photos That Show How Insanely Crowded China Has Become
China has reportedly dropped its long-standing one-child policy, which was first enacted decades ago in an effort to curb overpopulation.The current population rests at around 1.4 billion after having the policy in place for over 35 years. Only...
From Amateur to Professional: A 25-Year Photographic Journey
These old photos are a record of a time now gone, not just for a developing China but also for an updated version of myself.
A Bold New Instagram Collaboration Offers Fresh Eyes on China
The Eyes on China Project, a bold new collaboration between foreign and Chinese photographers, aims to broaden that view by bringing you photography, and photographers, that might not otherwise make it over the Great Firewall.
In China, Single Women Live by Their Own Rules
Though many single women have recently begun to push back on the term, traditional attitudes among China’s older generation still prevail: Get married young or risk becoming unwanted goods. Klaudia Lech, a photographer based in Oslo, was...
This Instagram Account Offers a New Perspective on China
Some photographs show the surprisingly mundane moments in the life of regular Chinese, such as Albertazzi’s image of a group of men playing cards in their swim shorts on a hot summer afternoon in Beijing; others are images from long-term...
Rare Access to China's Restive Far West
Raphael Fournier's "Around Taklamakan," is a series of photographs from China's Xinjiang province which emphasize cultural tensions and daily life.
Searching for Identity in China’s Outer Lands
“ ‘China’s Outer Lands’ is about people instinctively looking for their own identity, between conformity or originality or autonomy or dependence,” Mr. Sakamaki said. “It’s natural, it’s happening in not only China, it’s everywhere.”
Wild Pigeon
“The underlying theme I heard when talking to people was that how you interpret things is how they will be, so its best to look at the bright side of things. You don’t mention bad dreams, or you try to interpret them in a positive way. People...
China: What the Uighurs See
from New York Review of BooksXinjiang is one of those remote places whose frequent mention in the international press stymies true understanding. Home to China’s Uighur minority, this vast region of western China is mostly known for being in a state of...
This Little Bridge Connects Guangzhou and Africa
The southern Chinese city of Guangzhou is home to China’s largest African migrant population, predominantly from...
The Cowboys (and Indians) of Sichuan: Photographers Search for China's Billy the Kid
The people of remote Tagong in the southwestern grasslands resemble the cowboys and Indians of North American history.
Learn the History of Modern China Through Photobooks
A new book and exhibition reveals the untold history of photobook publishing in China.
The Changing Look of China, Myanmar, and Visual Journalism—A Chat With Jonah Kessel
from Sinica PodcastThis week on Sinica, Jeremy and Kaiser are joined by Jonah M. Kessel, former freelance photographer and now full-time videographer for The New York Times who has covered a wide range of China stories, traveled widely through the country...
Thomas Sauvin’s Beijing Silvermine
Thomas Sauvin estimates that he has sifted through more than half a million images, taken by ordinary citizens, between 1985 and the early aughts, that depict everyday life, leisure, and travel, both in China and abroad.
Chinese Environmentalists, in Their Own Words
Earlier this year, ChinaFile’s Environment Editor, Michael Zhao, teamed up with Phoenix Online to create a series of two-minute documentaries on the work, ideas, and aspirations of Chinese environmental advocates. The environmentalists, many of...
The Revolution Will Not Be Instagrammed
Mainland Chinese felt no effects from the protests roiling Hong Kong—until Beijing pulled the plug on another social network.
Elaborate Lattice Work in Confucius Lane
In my few years of photographing old houses around Shanghai, I have never been this buoyant over lattice woodwork in its original setting.
Never Before Seen Tiananmen Square Photos Found in Shoebox
I was searching through my parents’ photos for a piece I was writing on Tiananmen Square and my father, when I stumbled across two rolls of negatives that appeared to be from the 1989 student democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.
Stuart Franklin: How I Photographed Tiananmen Square and 'Tank Man'
The Magnum photographer tells his story of the 1989 protests, from peaceful demonstration to bloody crackdown, the iconic 'tank man' – and how hamburgers gave him his big break.
This Chinese Couple Turned Their Wedding Photos Into Protest Art
People in China cannot breathe, and they are getting tired of trying to mask it. One newlywed couple, in an act of protest, took their wedding portraits outdoors.
Chinese Sentiment
Shen Wei is a fine art photographer currently based in New York City. Before going to the States, he’s never even held a camera. But once he did, he never stopped. He was inspired by the medium and began exploring the power of photography. As he...
First Comes Love, Then Comes...the Photo Shoot
from Institute for Artist ManagementThe wedding banquet comes later. For many Chinese couples, married life really begins in the photo studio where, basted in glitter and hair gel, the brides dressed for a debut at La Scala or night out with Fabio, they gaze upon sets so tufted and...
Propaganda Photographer Wang Shilong
Wang Shilong 王世龙 (born in 1930 in Henan province) served in the Propaganda Department of the People’s Liberation Army as photographer and oil painter between the years 1948 and 1950. He then became a photojournalist for local newspapers and...
The People's Republic of Television Portraits from 1980's China
“Soon, photographs of people and their televisions began appearing around China.”
From the Underground to the Internet—Contemporary Art in China
from Sinica PodcastIn the late 1990s, the visual arts in China operated on the fringes of society, and those who dared to flirt with public prominence risked finding themselves on the disapproving end of a government clampdown. And yet how different things seem...
A Homecoming
Shot in big cities and small towns across China in recent years, Shen Wei’s photographic project “Chinese Sentiment” is a personal journey to recapture bygone Chinese life in both private and public space. Born and raised in Shanghai, Shen Wei...
In China, Rural Elderly Are Being Left Behind (Slideshow)
Tens of millions older Chinese are struggling with poverty and loneliness as their children flee villages for cities. Decades of societal turmoil — radical communism followed by rampant capitalism — have frayed the ties that once bound the...
Filmmaker Du Bin Released on Bail
Fimmaker, photographer and author Du Bin has been released after five weeks in detention in Beijing. On May 31, Du disappeared from his apartment in Beijing and was held by the police. Du was released on Monday, though he may still face trial on ...
China in Images and Words
from Sinica PodcastThis week on Sinica, Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn are delighted to host Matthew Niederhauser. A photographer focusing on urban development in China, Matthew has been published...
China: Portrait of a People
From the subtropical jungles of Yunnan to the frozen wastes of Heilongjiang; across the scalding deserts of Xinjiang and beneath Hong Kong’s neon blur. Tramping through China by train, bus, boat, motorcycle, mule or hitching on the back of anything that moved. On a budget so scant that he drew sympathetic stares from peasants. Backpacking photographer Tom Carter somehow succeeded in circumnavigating over 35,000 miles (56,000 kilometers) across all 33 provinces in China during a 2-year period, the first foreigner on record ever to do so.
China’s Sufis: The Shrines Behind the Dunes
from New York Review of BooksLisa Ross’s luminous photographs are not our usual images of Xinjiang. One of China’s most turbulent areas, the huge autonomous region in the country’s northwest was brought under permanent Chinese control only in the mid-twentieth century....
Photos of Trash Heaps Resemble Chinese Landscape Paintings
Yao Lu’s deceiving photos are a commentary on the state of China, its modernization, and its rampant pollution.
Chinese Family Memories, Recycled
Thomas Sauvin's photo project, composed of discarded negatives, "starts with birth, [and] ends with death... It talks a bit about love. People go to the beach. People travel." In short, it's about life.
In China, A Vast Chasm Between the Rich and the Rest
The passing coal miners in remote Shaanxi Province took one look at our marooned Audi and walked on, leaving us stuck on the sleet-covered mountain road. As dusk fell, I managed to mingle with some young migrant workers, and trek with them...
Province By Province, A Portrait of China
A Swiss couple thought it would be a good project to photograph all of China's provinces. They got a great portrait series, and then some.