Tales From China
That we were both born in the same year connects us, Luo Yang and me. 1984. I don’t think about politics very much,
she tells me when I ask about the country she lives in. And I don’t believe it has any influence on my work or my life. I prefer to focus on the people around me, even though their lives are, of course, influenced by politics. A little.
Ai Weiwei is a pioneer and an artist I deeply respect,
she replies when I ask about the Chinese rebel the world knows and admires. But we come from two different generations. His work is more rooted in society and politics, whereas I’m more concerned with the emotions of the people around me. His issues therefore don’t confront me directly.
I ask about Ren Hang, who passed away last year. He was a good friend of mine. I started photographing shortly before he did, and we met at one of my exhibitions in 2009, when he was still searching for his own style. His persistence and effort prevailed against the harsh Chinese reality and earned him the attention of the West.
Will Ren’s rather provocative and alternative art leave a mark in China and around the world, I ask Luo. It’s hard to say whether he changed China for the better, but at the very least he gave more Chinese artists and young people the courage and strength to pursue their true selves, and he brought the young generation of China closer to people in the West. Ren was a brave man.
I tell Luo that I love Mian Mian. I know her books are very well known in the West, but I don’t know her particularly well. She is one of the pioneers who writes from her own experiences and with her body. We have a few mutual friends, and I know about her early, wild life. The girls I photograph share some similarities with her. They are brave, young, lost, and beautiful.
The Chinese generation of the 1980s is caught in a gap,
Luo replies when I ask about our shared birth year. We inherited the traditional cultures of our predecessors and, since the country opened up, have been living in conflict with ourselves. We want to be freer, but we are held back by our family values. I don’t know Western peers particularly well, but fundamentally we are all the same. We all share the same emotions and problems, regardless of geographic and cultural differences.
I do have one last, almost clichéd question. What would Luo like to tell Germans about China and its young, new generation? I’ve been working as a photographer for more than ten years now and have seen major changes in the generations of the ’80s and ’90s. The new generation seems more relaxed and more loyal to themselves. And because China continues to develop and change every second, there will be more and more young, interesting people. Perhaps the internet and social media have brought the world closer together. Come to China and get to know the country and its young people better!