_{Keep Breathing Until Everything Reflourishes}

Family Photo, 2020
Cyanotype on Fabric
35x4 cm

_{This photography project, is my response to the passing of several relatives over last year. Started as a wish to ease anxiety in the family, completed with materials drawn from geomancy manuscripts of my late Gongzu-the father of my grandpa, this project reflects my attempt to bridge the chasm between his well-designed blueprint of the future and the reality, filled with irrational disputes over property and inheritance.
Inspired by Gongzu's immersion in nature while studying geomancy, I reproduced old family photos through Cyanotype, a process that involves interactions with water and sunlight. Then l brought family members to the land of promise found by Gongzu; he had hoped that its auspiciousness could bring fortune to the family. I transferred the symbols, topological descriptors, and geographical maps illustrated in the manuscripts to the surface of those portraits, again through cyanotype. The resulting, unpredictable blue-and-white images not only parallel the nuanced and complex interrelationship within the family, but also capture the efforts we made, together or separately, to live through this mythical and catastrophic year.}

Xiao Zhang 张晓

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Keep Breathing Until Everything Reflourishes

Xiao Zhang
张晓

_{Keep Breathing Until Everything Reflourishes}