Xiangyue sees the world through a different lens
In a world where so much has been invested into developing and proliferating digital media, it seems meaningful that Xiangyue sees the digital realm as the one where an image would stagnate.
This article was originally published on Neocha and is republished with permission.
Xiangyue is an independent platform dedicated to building a community around art photography. In support of this effort, online, it publishes WeChat articles and Bilibili vlogs, its content running the gamut from artist interviews to explorations of how to analyze a photograph; offline, it hosts workshops and photography exhibitions. Based in Shanghai, it currently consists of a small team of three: Liรบ Bล ๅๆณข, Dฤซng Dฤซng ไธไธ, and Zhลng Lรญnjiฤng ้ๆๆฑ. One of their various endeavors is their eponymous photo books, which compile the work of a few dozen photographers per issue.
In the early stages of building the Xiangyue community, the team started a WeChat group in which members could only share photos, and nothing else. The rule was strictly enforced, and whoever sent anything else was booted from the group. As the chat room became flooded with images, an idea began to form, one that ran counter to the conventional fascination with digitalization. โWe thought it would be such a pity for these outstanding works to languish on a phone screen,โ says Zhong. โIf the pictures were in a book, presented in the medium of paper, it would allow these works to last foreverโit would truly embody their value.โ Inspired, they set up a crowdfunding page and opened a call for submissions for the first issue, which ultimately came out in October 2019. Three photobooks have been published since, and the fourth is imminently on the way.
In a world where so much has been invested into developing and proliferating digital media, it seems meaningful that Xiangyue sees the digital realm as the one where an image would stagnate. Itโs easy to understand why, though: online, an image can drown among a billion others. In book format, by contrast, we can see and feel where a book begins and ends, and perhaps that familiar limitation still makes for a better experience of content than the limitlessness of the digital world.
Zhong says many of their followers have asked about the origin of the name Xiangyue (่ฑกๆฐ in Chinese). The name was chosen by Xiangyue founder Shitou, who passed away last March, and to whom the third issue is dedicated.ย ย Xiangย is one way to say โappearanceโ or โimage,โ but its original meaning is โelephantโโand surprisingly, the double meaning illustrates something of Xiangyueโs ideology.
Since elephants were a seldom-seen animal in ancient times, they came to stand in for distant or abstract concepts; the character is thus often used in words involving โthe indefinite, the ambiguous,โ says Zhong, offering examples such as imagine [ๆณ่ฑก], abstract [ๆฝ่ฑก], impression [ๅฐ่ฑก], and maybe most importantly, image or imagery [ๆ่ฑก]. The second syllable yue [ๆฐ] means to say or convey, so the more direct interpretation is simply of an image saying something. But the name intentionally retains another sense thatโs far more nebulous.
This looser sense truly shows itself in the third issue ofย Xiangyue. Between the accessibility of smartphone cameras and photo editing software, the โperfectโ shot seems more obtainable than ever โ but thatโs precisely what theyโre veering away from. โThere are many ways for a photo to be good,โ says Zhong, initially shrugging off my question about how he curates photos for the books. โBut personally,โ he allows, โone kind of picture I would not select is the kind that underwent extremely painstaking polishing.โ
The theme for the issue is a Chinese idiom, โthe fish sink and the birds fall,โ which describes animalsโ reactions to profound beauty. Yet at a glance, some of the images in this volume might seem to be bewildering responses to such a prompt. A peeling decal of some cherry blossoms on the door of a dirty white car. A steamed-up washroom in somebodyโs apartment, the sink counter full of soaps, detergents, a toothbrush in a mug. An uncomfortably close shot from just behind a swimmer about to dive into a river. Many other photos within are unfocused, blurry, or almost abstract. โWe wanted to seek after beauty in an image, with no limit to form,โ says Zhong, and indeed, this resulted in a book of images stretching the limits of what might be considered beautiful.
As rejections of the search for perfection in digital media, these images are ideal. Understanding them as responses to a theme related to beauty, though, requires the viewer to do some further digging on their own. One could push oneself to draw out poetic interpretations of the beauty of the above images. The decal: quiet, tired individuality. The bathroom: the warmth of a cluttered home. The swimmer: mankindโs vigor, in action. Alternatively, one might ask whether the photos themselves are meant to be beautiful, or if they actually depict the fish and birds responding to something else beautiful about the world.
Suffice it to say that Xiangyue is interested in the way that an image that seems nondescript, framed the right way, can flick a switch in a viewerโs imagination. To the attentive eye, the apparently imperfect image becomes more worthy of attention than the perfect; the ordinary moment reveals itself to be more unique than the rare; the unfocused lens shows something that would otherwise never have been seen. Ultimately, if a picture doesnโt seem to be about beauty at first, one has to admit that its inclusion in the bookโs narrative elevates it to be part of the conversation.
In the editorโs letter of the issue, Zhong asks whether the photo book is a work of art in its own right, then humbly declines to answerโbut in fact, the editorial choices are no small part of what makes it engaging. โEditing a photography book, one needs to pay close attention to story and rhythm,โ he says. โThere were some photographs that I liked but, to my regret, didnโt select, because they didnโt align with either the given theme or the overall style of the book.โ Photos are arranged with great attention to detail, and distracting information, such as photographersโ names, is left to the end credits so that the images can tell their story unimpeded. Certain photos are isolated to give them space to soliloquize; others are juxtaposed to put them in conversation with each other, or so they can amplify each otherโs respective messages.
Near the back of the book is a page that simply reads, โEvery book ofย Xiangyueย is a seed.โ What do they hope will grow out of that seed? โOur objective, on some level, is to inject fresh blood into Chinese photography,โ he says, โand to change some of the status quo of photography and art circles.โ He notes that the majority of Chinaโs photography enthusiasts arenโt pursuing the medium as a means to make contemporary art. In the photography section of video platform Bilibili, most channels tend to focus on technical subjects such as camera specs and lenses. Xiangyueโs channel is an anomaly in the photography section of video platform Bilibili, where other channels tend to focus on technical subjects such as camera specs and lenses.
None of this is to say that Xiangyue is explicitly anti-digital, anti-photo editing, or anti-technique. Their logo, inspired by the curvature of a fish-eye lens, is tied to their belief in viewing the world from different perspectives. And in a way, the Xiangyue ethos certainly seems to be a response to contemporary trends in Shanghai; for instance, the teamโs humble workshop is not far from glitzy high-rise malls that grant pride of place to virtual reality pop-ups, increasingly sophisticated interactive media displays, and sportswear ads with models edited to look somewhere between unreal and hyper-real. For the upcoming fourth issue, they draw inspiration from Zhuangziโs belief in uncovering the merits of nothingness, which feels particularly aligned with the teamโs overall vision. Amid all this rush for faster, more advanced, higher quality, new and improved, Xiangyue prefers to slow down. They find the beauty that already exists all around us, turn it into a seed, plant it, and wait patiently for it to grow.
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Website:ย www.xiangyue2020.com
Instagram:ย @xiangyue2020
Weibo:ย ~/elefantfoto
Bilibili:ย ~/่ฑกๆฐ
Contributor:ย Kiril Bolotnikov
Photographer:ย Chan Qu
Chinese Translation: Olivia Li
