Jenny has recently traveled to Africa on assignment with International Medical Corps humanitarian aid group.
#LIGHTGALLERY CONDITIONALLY OPEN SERIES#
This propelled me to investigate my roots further and in 1995, I began a series of pilgrimages to China for purposes of visiting the home of my mother's family, of furthering the study of the Mandarin language, of becoming acquainted with Chinese culture, and finally, of beginning to produce a photographic body of work of the various cultures that exist throughout this immensely diverse country. I began to acknowledge that the family troubles my mother and I had experienced were attributed to cultural differences more than I had previously understood. In the early 1990's, authors like Amy Tan so eloquently and compassionately wrote of the kinds of experiences I had personally had - of growing up as an Asian female in western society yet within the more restrictive atmosphere of Chinese home life. During my teenage years while living in California, my mother and I struggled through many conflicts. My mother raised me as a single parent and we were isolated from our relatives who, like most Chinese families, are scattered around the world in places like Hong Kong, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Until 1995, I had never set foot on Asian soil. I was born in 1967 in England to a Chinese mother and Malaysian father. Through my photography, I have tried to capture the sense of closeness and love I felt for the Chinese people, as well as to document its cultures and society. The hospitality, generosity and the immediate friendship often extended to me by perfect strangers left me humble and in awe. I want to capture the present-day China before a sweep of change floods the land during this century.Ĭhina is an incredible array of faces, colors, fabrics, artwork, architecture, languages and customs which remain memorialized in my mind's eye, forged by the beauty of character and strength of spirit I witnessed through my encounters with the people of that land. My contact with these remarkable people has inspired my photography and changed my life. I hope to return to China to cover the remaining provinces and photograph, among others, the Jingpo, Lahu, Maonan, Miao, Mulao, Mongolian, Nu, Sala, She, Tu, Yao and Yugu in the southern and northeastern provinces.
Throughout these 10 provinces, I had the great pleasure of meeting and photographing the delightful and intriguing people of the Bai, Bouyi, Dai, Dong, Hani, Kazak, Hui, Hmong, Naxi, Qiang, Tajik, Uzbek, Uighur, Yi, Wa and Tibetan nationalities. From the eastern seaboard, I made my way across China to investigate the various ethnic groups of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guanxi, Qinghai and Xinjiang areas. Shanghai is loaded with history but its vision of the future thrusts itself like an invasion upon the debris of old buildings and is certainly a blatant and somewhat horrifying reflection of China's frenzied strife to become the financial center of the world. My first trip to China in 1995 began in my mother's family home of Shanghai. The 55 ethnic groups officially recognized by the state include a mixture of cultures, customs and religions that are threatened with assimilation into the Han Chinese majority. These groups vary greatly, ranging from the Muslim groups of Uighurs in the northwestern province of Xinjiang, to the Buddhist Tibetans of Tibet and surrounding provinces, to the matrilineal societies of the Chiang peoples in Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces. The truth, however, is that 10 percent of China's 1.2 billion population are from a variety of ethnic and linguistic groups, inhabiting approximately 60 percent of the total land mass. Tibetan girls braiding hair, Gansu Province, China 1995Ī Photographic Journey with China's Ethnic Minority GroupsĬhina is viewed by the outside world, for the most part, as consisting wholly of Han Chinese.
We are a new contemporary gallery in Central London offering a bright and elegant exhibition space in pleasant surroundings with easy access from the West End. Welcome to the lightgallery website (circa 2003). Lightgallery: A Contemporary Gallery in Central LondonĬontent is from the site's 2003 archived pages.
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