Calls for entry! 'Everyday • Uniqueness' exhibition to showcase up-and-coming photographers
Since 2015, young picture editors from the website hosted by China Photographers Association have tried to focus on works by young photographers from home and abroad, starting with the images themselves.
These works, though representing "everyday" images, fully embody the young generation's reflection on the relationship between the self and the other, between cultural and social problems. In artistic terms, these works are both diversified and personalized, exploring the nature of image language. In their creations, photography has been considered an individualized "me", and since transformed into means of "reappearing everyday life".
The reason why "everyday" is chosen as the theme of the photo exhibition is that we don't want to label the photography by the young as "contemporary photography", "new-generation photography" or "new documentary photography", which may limit audiences' understanding of these works.
We have found these works originating in the everyday are fermented and sublimated in life, becoming the young generation's unique creative perspective. They are no longer conventional and have a clear-cut stance on what to love and what to hate. Their understanding of society and culture is deep inside their work.
However, we have realized some questions should be raised based on the past three years' experience. What is "contemporary"? Most of the young photographers were exposed to academic art, and their works are influenced by foreign photography schools. In this sense, they are still ruminating over their cultural identity and in a process of cultural integration. The content of their work is sometimes petty, and they may imitate and follow trends.
Based on these phenomena, the Everyday • Uniqueness — Group Photography Exhibition of Young Photographers from Home and Abroad has launched the Youth Talent Development Program to provide financial support in the hope more young photographers can conduct long-term, in-depth shooting and explorations on the themes, subjects and relevant social and global issues, so enthusiasm for image practice can be more down-to-earth, unique and long-standing.
We hope each exhibition offers an opportunity for heart-to-heart exchange between photographers and the audience.
This year, the exhibition, themed on "Everyday • Uniqueness", is calling for excellent photographs with warmth, story, thought and value from young photographers from around the world.
