Part of the reason of being in Shanghai is to do research for Chinese photography, its discourse and its concurrent history with Western photography.

Over at the Moganshan/M50 Art District, Huang Yunhe, gallery director of OFoto and historian, answered many of my questions, one of which is “What is Chinese Photography?” Knowing, of course, the implications are the same as asking “What is American Photography?” and to an extreme, “What is Photography?”

1. Photographers who are Chinese-born, including Mainland Chinese, Overseas Chinese and Chinese descent, are within Chinese Photography canon.

2. Photographers who are not Chinese but have some sort of relationship to China in their subject matter are within Chinese Photography canon.

Bear in mind, there are distinctions between Mainlanders, Hongkongers, Taiwanese, Overseas Chinese and people of Chinese descent, as some may consider Mainlanders to be actual Chinese for example.

Island6's Thomas Charvériat discusses the ideologies and conceptual practices of collaboration using their exhibition, Absolute 0:00 (seen in the mini-gallery at: Shanghai Express Part One)

Though, one of my favorite visits was with Eastlink. Ten years ago, during the Third Shanghai Biennale, Eastlink exhibited the Fuck Off show, which in Chinese is ?????, or "Uncooperative Approach." The police closed down the show before the closing date due to the exhibited works stirred many controversies. Many of the most well-known Chinese artists were in this show.

Later, sitting in a photography talk with historians Xuanguo Yang (Expert of the development of photographic equipment in China), Xinqei Yang (expert of Printing), Xinsheng Yang (History of Chinese Photography) and Yiming Guan (Schols of Shanghai Contemporary Photography), I managed to add to a dispute between Xinsheng Yang and a photographer-in-the-audience, who witnessed the Cultural Revolution and knew another side of the history which Xinsheng Yang did not mention. Our translator did not mention a few things the photographer-in the-audience said but our guest coordinator, Zane, revealed them later.

Oh, here’s an analogue 3-D camera.

After attending some artists’ talks in the passed week, I have come to learn that Hou Bo, an Official Photographer for Mao Zedong, passed away recently. I had plans to try and meet her during my stay in Shanghai since she lives in a suburb. The photographer-in-the-audience cynically said she obviously is not able to photograph anymore. China still owns all of her photographic contributions.

Tommy "She went out on a whimper" Kha