Historical memory of modern China is inextricably linked to the works of Sha Fei (1912-1950). Sha’s photographs encapsulate the collective visual memory of the first half of the twentieth-century Chinese leftist and revolutionary history. These include the iconic photos of the writer Lu Xun (1881-1936), the Chinese army waging a battle on the Great Wall, and Henry Norman Bethune (1890-1939), the Canadian anti-fascist physician who provided service for the Eighth Route Army in World War II in China.
 

Sha left behind an extensive trove of photographs. Many of these have been used as visual aid to illustrate modern Chinese history. While the official storylines may subsume these photographs, an immersion in Sha’s photographic world strains many of the facile assumptions one may hold with regard to the unexamined storylines perpetuated in the media both in China and the West. Sha’s photographs are antidotes to hasty overgeneralizations and ideological simplification. They offer insights and experience of a complex time and world unmediated by hardened narrative closures, schematic formulae, and clichés.

 

The conference offered groundbreaking discoveries and discussions of the language of photography. The videos of the conference, the interview with speakers will be uploaded to our website for free public learning.