Mathieu Pernot’s work analyzes the relationship between the individual and the power exerted by different social institutions. The artist uses the photographic medium at the same time that he questions its normative effects. What is particularly interesting is that his work does not only offer an état de lieux but each project could also seen as a piece of active resistance. Pernot’s opposition is silent, far from touching on the spectacular. It is solid and advances progressively.

Selected by Marta Daho on August 5, 2010

Kathrin Kur’s photographs of places and common situations are strictly documentary and yet the way she presents them subtly prevents the viewer from making an immediate interpretation of what they see. The places photographed include empty television studios (Smoke and Mirrors), Shooting Ranges or as here presented, the scene of a (Mediterranean ferry loading) quay at night. Parklife is an exploration of a single image. A virtual camera forces us to look the image at a slow and punctuated pace thus creating a certain suspense. Parklife can also be considered as a brilliant mise-en-scene that touches upon one of Photography’s core issues: its fragmentary nature.

Selected by Marta Daho on August 1, 2010

Herbert Weber is interested in dismantling some traditional codes of lecture and to reveal the unsettling factor that pervades our perception of a photographic image. Like an outstanding disciple of G.K. Chesterton, Weber creates sophisticated parodies related to some of the most conventional aspects of the photographic act. The most obvious: undermine the certainty with which we tend to differentiate between documentary and staged photography. In Weber’s work, both converge in a cheerful and unusual way.

Selected by Marta Daho on July 30, 2010

Acapulco is a place where you can’t say no. Elvis Presley said it this way in a song dating back to 1963 that had become popular a year earlier after the release of the movie Fun in Acapulco. In this installation project, the Mexican artist Pablo López Luz not only sheds light upon the topographic vision of different architectural structures and urban landscape but also to the classical imagery of a place full of glamour that has been vividly immortalized by the cinema and advertising industries.

Selected by Marta Daho on July 15, 2010

Nariman Ansari: This project is also about cultural stereotypes. The way that we ‘read’ and profile each other in society. How the media and society view women in Pakistan. It is almost an anthropological study of the clichés and science involved; using myself as the constant, I wanted to explore the code that goes into creating a stereotype. What do these women say about where they come from? Who is the Pakistani woman? And which stereotype am I?

Selected by Yumi Goto on June 29, 2010

Zhang Xiao: “Behind this ostentatious city, there is always grief and tears, indifference and cruelty. I met them by chance and I longed to understand each of their lives and experiences. What were they thinking in the moment that these photographs were taken? Perhaps everyone has a different answer, and perhaps they have no answer at all. What was I thinking when I photographed them? I have no answer either. Because I am one of them, I am also indifferent. Perhaps our daily lives are all absurd.”

Selected by Three Shadows Photography Art Centre on June 18, 2010

Huang Xiaoliang: “An Expectation or a New Miracle” is my series related to memory and yearning for the future. Many things from my memory appear in these works; these things are from scenes that I remember. The works are all on a line, like a platform for my feelings, where wild weeds and modern things overlap, uncovering some tiny specks of hope in a sad situation. All of this emerges from the shadows – shadows can be seen, but the thing itself cannot, as if it were the principle of time. It is like the reverse image of yourself in water, which allows you to examine yourself in the mist.Slight sadness is an absolutely necessary attitude towards past memories.

Selected by Three Shadows Photography Art Centre on June 16, 2010

The body images in this series related to a desire to reach intimacy and to the anxiety of unfulfilled intimacy. I employed a digital scanner as the camera in this series. I constructed life-size full body images of myself by scanning/photographing my body, section by section. Eighteen to twenty-four segmented images are used for each full body image. Scanner technology is normally used to reproduce. I used it to attempt to reveal my intimate self. Ironically, I saw the glass of the scanner as a symbolic barrier; no matter how accurately I express myself, there is always a barrier between others and me. Historically, patriarchal views dominate the representation of woman. Having lived in both the United States and China, I have been exposed to many rigid stereotypes about Chinese women in the popular imagination and everyday language. I cannot see myself as represented accurately in these ideas, but they are constantly projected on me by others. It is therefore important for me to be able to control my own image as a Chinese woman and to confirm my existence by making it public.

Selected by Three Shadows Photography Art Centre on June 14, 2010

Wang Huan, winner of the Three Shadows Photography Award’s Shiseido Prize: In the small town of Zhuantang near Hangzhou, lives a group of simple, decent people. It was this simplicity that moved me and made me want to record their lives and engage in this narration about life’s vicissitudes. By using a camera to catch this simplicity, I also achieved my artistic intention. As a result, I often walked around Zhuantang’s streets and alleys with my “toy camera,” keeping my “image diary”, my “alley graffiti.”

Selected by Three Shadows Photography Art Centre on June 13, 2010

Today’s presentation: “Silence,” by Mu Ge, semifinalist of the 2010 Three Shadows Photography Award. The award invited a five-member international jury to China, consisting of Les Rencontres d’Arles Photography Festival Director François Hébel, Museum of Modern Art Photography Curator Eva Respini, art critic Karen Smith, Japanese art critic Kotaro Iizawa, and Three Shadows Photography Art Centre Founder RongRong.

Selected by Three Shadows Photography Art Centre on June 11, 2010