The magazine of the photo-essay
April 2020 issue
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film maker
by Rosemary Zens
At the beginning of her travels to China, Rosemarie Zens found a predominantly
agrarian multi-ethnic state and initially photographed mainly landscapes and
everyday scenes in urban and rural situations that reminded her of pre-modern
times in our Western world. Within a time-frame of twenty years, a rapid structural
change within Chinese society took place. The memorable photographs show how
China increasingly orients itself towards Western culture and how homogenizing
forces such as science, technology and the global market influence individual life.
On various levels, however, the images also bear witness to how the precarious
developments reflect our own approach to the world, while traces of the
spirituality of ancient Chinese culture can still be found in the style of the images.
