In recent years, China has proffered tantalizingly fertile landscapes to photographers exploring the socioeconomic impact of its arrival as a superpower. Such projects typically hew closely to well-established narratives, revealing an obvious that China is undergoing a radical wave of transformational change.
In his first monograph, Chinese Sentiment, Shen Wei has performed a radical act in its own right by sidestepping all such cliche. Instead, he presents a vision of his homeland that peers deep beneath the surface, plumbing the psychological shades of gray, and finding a nation ambivalent to its perpetual state of suspension between past and future.
Running counter to virtually every Western interpretation, Shen Wei reveals the human scale of a lone figure observed through the trees; the stolen glance of a young girl; a moment of repose in the bedroom. With nuanced observation and a serene visual style marked with wit and compassion, the seventy-five images in Chinese Sentiment render a complex portrait of modern China.
Employing the language of photography in a manner both dreamlike and cinematic in scope, Chinese Sentiment gracefully limns the interior life of a nation in the throes of epic change.
The introduction is by Peter Hessler, staff writer and former Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker . Hessler is the author of three books on China, including Country Driving, A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory (Harper, 2010). Chinese Sentiment was guest-edited by Lesley A. Martin, publisher of the Aperture Foundation book program.
