Using a Rollei twin-lens reflex camera and a square format, Wei Jinchun records Tangshan’s earthquake remains, industrial ruins, everyday street life, and diverse inhabitants with a measured eye. Liu Gaofeng reads the series’ absurd compositions and juxtaposed scenes, in which reality and illusion intertwine, as visual metaphors for historical trauma, urban landscapes, and tensions between social classes. In his account, the work reveals the underlying pain and contradictions of Tangshan’s transformation and exemplifies how contemporary photography can engage with historical memory and social critique.

Xiao Chen recalls first encountering Wei Jinchun’s work while judging the 13th Ant Photography Award. Drawing on his own memories of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake’s impact on Tianjin, he examines Wei’s practice. Xiao argues that Wei combines documentary observation of actual landscapes, including areas of subsidence, with a subjective perspective that moves beyond conventional social documentary photography. Through a visual language rich in symbols and metaphors, Wei conveys historical pain, present-day contradictions, and states of mind shaped by changing times, offering deeper reflections on the city and human life.

Beginning in 2023, Wei Jinchun spent a year photographing Tangshan, Hebei, with a twin-lens reflex camera. The work is grounded in the city’s layered history and social realities: its rebirth from earthquake rubble, the painful landscape changes accompanying industrial transformation, and its struggle to reshape its public image. Through documentary depictions of residents from the urban center and outlying districts and counties, alongside scenes of magical realism, the series conveys the distinctive human character and imprint of the times in a northern industrial city shaped by hardship, struggle, and an unrestrained spirit.