“Shift (2012 -2015)” by Xiao Zhang

These works were created with the film-moving technology on instant film, i.e. to peel instant film by layers, soak it in water, take the imaging film of photo paper off, and transfer it onto other media, e.g. paper, on which several works can be pieced together.

 I like those seemingly imperfect images that were transferred onto the paper in the first place. They metaphorize the relationship between my hometown and I. With the collage images, I am trying to balance the memory and the reality. During years of separation, my hometown was changing, and so was I. 

My connection with my hometown was completely broken, just like the broken instant film. I pieced the fragmented photo paper curling in water together, as if I was trying to mend the relationship with my hometown, because I know I always belong to the small village where I was born and brought up, no matter how far I am away from it, and actually I have never left it at all.

Zhang Xiao was born in 1981 in Yantai city, Shandong province, China. Zhang Xiao graduated from the Department of Archi- tecture and Design at Yantai University in 2005. He was a photojournalist for Chongqing Morning Post. Zhang won the Three Shadows Photography Award in 2010 with They series. He also received the second Hou Dengke Documentary Photography Award in 2009, The Photography Talent Award (France) in 2010 and the Prix HSBC pour la Photographie in 2011 with his Coastline series. Zhang currently lives and works in Chengdu city, Si- chuan province, China.

He has had solo exhibitions in Taiwan, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, China and Singapore. Zhang has also participated in numerous group exhibitions and fairs all across the globe as well as having his work featured in various collections. He has been awarded The Prix HSBC Pour la Photographie (2011), MIO Photo Award- Jurors Award (2010), Three Shadows Photography Award (2010), The Photography Talent Award – Reportage/Documentary Award Winner (2010), Southern Documentary Photography Award (2010) and Hou Dengke Documentary Photography Award (2009).