“National Civilized City” sculpture
Project Statement
In late March 2023, I first visited Tangshan with a roommate from the city. After dinner, we went to Nanhu Park. He told me about the former mining area, the earthquake, the ruins, and those who died. His accounts changed my perception of the landscape before me. I then visited the Tangshan Earthquake Museum and the Earthquake Memorial Park, and began traveling frequently between Tianjin and Tangshan. In late April 2023, I rented a temporary place to stay in Tangshan. Over roughly the following year, I continued photographing the city center, old industrial areas, surrounding counties, and the urban–rural edges.
I was initially drawn to the weight of history left by the earthquake. As the work developed, my attention gradually shifted toward Tangshan as it is lived today: its people, urban construction, spaces of consumption, youth communities, labor, mines, steelworks, and life in the surrounding counties. The violence at a barbecue restaurant in 2022, the year before I began photographing, and public symbols such as “National Civilized City” that remain visible in the city also became part of how I understood its present.
I come from Guangxi and have no experience of Tangshan as a hometown. My understanding of the city comes from returning, photographing, interacting with people, and editing. In the final work, earthquake memory becomes one layer among others. Together with people, industry, urban construction, public image, and everyday life, it forms my observations of Tangshan.
Danfeng Chaoyang bronze sculpture
Man in a Zhongshan suit
Rubble in the earthquake museum
Memorial wall for the victims of the Tangshan earthquake
Flowers on the victims’ memorial wall
Monument to the unidentified
Wildfire in the woods
Young man leaning against a tree
People singing in the park
Open gate
“I Love You, China”
Caifu Building
Young man wearing sunglasses
Tattoo on an arm
Tangshan Harley motorcycle club
Young people in a bar
Crack and glue trap on the wall of a workers’ dormitory
Worker in Shiquanzhuang
Child in Anlezhuang
Zhanggezhuang Community and the Disan Kongjian complex
Elderly man in Zhaojiazhuang
Mound of garbage
Steelworks mural reading “Lucid Waters and Lush Mountains” and smokestacks
Person looking into the distance from dust-control netting
Excavated mountainside
White bed
Woman wearing a green scarf
Man selling farm produce beside Qiantang Highway
Shepherd on the outskirts
Poodle in a cage by the street
Man holding a child
Bloodstained sheepskin
Grave and paper ox
Red carp in a temple
Leaking floor slab
Emblem on a back
Cooling tower painted with a landscape
Photobook
Tangshan
Snap Collective
2025
Four parts · 109 photographs in the main sequence
Related Texts
Wei Jinchun
1839 Photography Award interview
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