Theirs

A New Lookof People

you already Knew

What Else Can We Live?Guang Lu

Happiness = More PossibilitiesAriel Lin

Art Is Shaped By A Car CrashGuo Hongwei

Forming China’s First Heavy Metal BandDing Wu

Gangster to MusicanHideaki Ishi

Simplify The Life, Double For HappinessXia Li

Cool Gaze On History And Its ImagesLi Songsong

Life’s WorkXiaoshuai Wang

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What Else Can We Leave? On October 14th, 2009, The W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography was first belonged to a photographer from mainland China--- Guang Lu. The prize-winning documen-tary project Guang Lu did “Pollution in China” received the W. Eugene Smith Award and $30,000 as grant for his photographic researches. When the news had been “going out”, Guang Lu dominates the spotlights in China rapidly. When he got back China from the United States, his cell phone was ringing all the time along his way back home.

--- Guang Lu

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It is my dream to be a good photographer. I think when what you are doing is a true career for me, then the sense of responsibility you have for the

society has embodied in it, which is not the thing I deliberately seeking to.

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What role do you think W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography played for you and environmental protection? First, Eugene Smith is an American photogra-pher. In the 70’s, he went to Japan to take a series of photos on the mist, which made Japanese real-ize the seriousness of the environmental pollution issues. In the 70’s, Japan also had terrible pollution problems. Because of the social impact of this series of photos, they totally changed the Japan’s environmental pollution problems. They gave this award to me, I thought maybe this series of my photos were similar to his. What it means to me for this award, one side, is just the recognition of my work in the past years. Although I’m very happy for receiving this award, it’s more like a sense of responsibility for me. I think I will continue caring about topics on environmental protection the rest of my life. On the other side, this set of photos will attract more people’s atten-tion worldwide, especially for those who have the ability to do something for our common people. I hope they can make a change after looking at my photos, that’s my biggest gain.

Which is the most impressed photo for you among the photos you took? I took almost millions of photos, there’s a story behind every set of photos, and all of which impressed me so much. In 2005, the pollution for the development of the western region in China shocked me for the first time. Later, I went to some coastal areas in China, and discovered that almost every coastal city have its own chemical industry park. The worst thing was the sewage there was flowing directly to the ocean. Fishes we ate were all from the ocean, so I was extremely shocked at that time. As a photographer who already knows these things, I think I definitely have the responsi-bility to report that to the public.

What kind of mood were you in when tak-ing these photos? I hope more people can know the truth through my camera lens; this is my job, my responsibility.

When you look at people off the camera are strug-gling their lives, you will feel heartache every time you take the shot.

Do you feel that your photography have impacts (on people)? As for the impacts of my photographs, in fact, I didn’t feel it when I was shooting them. This time I did not create the impact, it was the media. When I shot them I followed my own ideas to take pho-tos, to do a good job, so that more people know the truth. What you said impact is because people are concerned, actually very concerned about the pollution issue in China, which is everyone’s, is hu-man’s. Therefore, everyone was very concerned.

Have you encountered danger when you shooting? How to deal with that? I have encountered too many dangers and troubles, but my wife once said that I am brave but not reckless. Although I look more like an outlaw most of the time, I can better protect myself and the person I love.

As a professional photographer, do you think there’s something different between you and media photographers? There are insignificant differences between professional photographers and media photog-raphers. Media photographer always have a clear aim, they are taking photos just in order to com-plete their jobs. But my job emphasis more on tak-ing myself into the fact, discover details and plots. I usually observe and get familiar with the situa-tion before taking photos instead of on a hurry to catch the minute. That’s what media photographer cannot do according to their job nature. I can spend months, even years to follow one particular subject, and that’s also what a media photogra-pher cannot do with their job duty.

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Ariel Lin

Happiness = More Possibilities

Ariel Lin (Yichen Lin), becomes the first trendy drama actress that received the ‘Best Female Artist’ in the 41th Taiwan Golden Bell Awards. She is truly deserve the title of “the queen of Taiwan trendy drama”, but her real growing experience was more like an inspiring movie--- parental separation; pay her mother’s debt and take care of her two-time stroke mother.

Happiness = More Possibilities

“I had to depend on my own”

The experiences that Ariel have can be a wonder-ful inspiring movie. This pure and innocent girl is very premature compare to other girls in her age. She said her personality is mostly affected by her childhood’s experiences. On October 29th, 1982,

Ariel Lin was born in a common family in Yi Lan province in Taiwan. Her parent separated when she was a little child, and divorced when Ariel was in

junior high.

Ariel and her young-er brother were raised by her mother, but her mother was sickly with low-paid, so they usually depend on using credit card when met emer-gencies. “My mother had over ten credit cards, we overdraft every cards to get by, and that resulted in getting us into huge debt.” Ariel Lin said. Ariel is get used to living economically because of the family environment she had. “I knew my mom was very tired to keep the pot boiling at that time, but she never cried in front of us”. Until I made my first money by act-ing in “True Love 18”, I just knew we already had five hundred million TWD in debt.” However, Ariel doesn’t think her childhood was filled with bitter and painful memo-ries. She read a lot of fairy tale like ‘Cinderella

and her Prince Charming’ like other girls. She liked eat-ing chocolate and everything sweet, always fought with her younger broth-er. The absence of father was the only thing took to her heart at that time.

One night when Ariel Lin was in junior high school, her mother suffered a stroke suddenly. She and her younger brother was at a loss as to what to do, but they still not willing to turn to their father for help. “ I got my mother to the hospital, went through all the procedures by myself. I was communicating with doctors while comforting my younger brother’s mood and my helpless…”

In 2008, Ariel Lin won the ‘Best Female Artist’ in the 41th Golden Bell Awards, because the wide acceptance trendy drama “They Kiss Again”. Facing the screaming of her fans, Ariel was pretty calm. She said to other actresses off stage: “someone told me, a successful actor’s mission is to lead specta-tors to see the deeper humanity. I extremely hope I can do it, and believe that everybody off stage has the same thinking. We all acting with our lives, so we can do far more good than we already did.” Life experiences can be acting materials for every actors and actresses, especially obvious on Ariel Lin.

“Life is wonderful” After going through various disputes, Ariel is having her own happiness at the age of 27. With her album “Blissful Encounter”, she is telling us that: “there’s no real good or absolute wrong exists. Everything has its own meaning, it’s interlocked. No matter what, cherish what you already have. ‘Don’t hesitate, don’t miss, never regret’---That’s what I want to do now.”

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Guo Hongwei

Art Is Shaped By

Guo Hongwei, a young artist suffered considerable damage to his face (a jagged scar beneath his chin), and he spent the next month in recovery, dealing with post-accident depression and sleeping 20 hours per day. The 27-year-old Sichuan native has a penchant for British pop and for two hours we wander around the studio to Bepenche Mode’s Greatest Hits. Guo punches every word --- like an engine is rewing just around the corner. In November 2005, the artist was in the front passenger seat of a friend’s car when they collided with another vehicle. “Basically”, he said, “I’d wake up, think about the crash, read a little, and doze off. Friends stopped by sometimes. They’d check on me and leave some food in the fridge.”

Car Crash

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Guo was born in 1982 in Chengdu, the son of an artistic father and a mother who worked for a trade union. From early on he was exposed to calligraphy and seal making. Guo says his father, a newspaper editor by day, is well known in traditional Chinese art circles, ‘But studying with him was intense. He expected me to excel, but it wasn’t happening.’ His father’s high expectations were still a positive influence on the budding artist. In 2000, Guo received admission to the famous Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in Chongqing, where he came into contact with more conceptual work through visiting lecturers from Germany’s Kunsthochschule Kassel art academy. In 2005, Guo Hongwei had graduated and moved to Beijing, he was producing watercolors based on childhood photo-graphs. With his solid skill and a job as an assistant Beijing, Guo’s career was pro-gressing well. Then the accident followed by. “After crash,” he said, “I no longer got the same feeling of painting when my brush touched the canvas.” “I also started to doubt memory. It’s so subjective.” Guo began an intense period of reading in an effort to probe his consciousness he had experienced after the accident. “I come from a Marxist background and Marxism emphasis the material. So I’ve been told not to explore my own consciousness since it doesn’t influence the material world.” But the crash changed that. Guo be-gan reading into the occult, chaos theory and Wittgenstein. His ideas has changed gradually, he began to focusing on pro-cess. This tendency intensified after a Spring Festival trip back home. Looking through old family photo albums, he said, “I experienced a real disconnect. I couldn’t remember the experiences recorded in the photo.” Guo again reproduced portraits from his childhood in oil painting, but this time

he used water and turpentine to smudge out the brushstrokes. “I wanted to destroy the brushstrokes,” he said. ‘Destroy.’ Guo prefers to mix pigment with turpentine because he hates using white to mix pigment. The effect is closer to Chinese traditional painting than to oils. For his debut solo effort this month, Guo’s latest watercolors and oils meditate on daily household objects such as tooth-brushes and paper cups. He paints the same object dozens of times. Through repetition, he says, he gradually feels that the object becomes really good looking. Yet you cannot help but wonder wheth-er painting is the artist’s own personal Jesus, and whether this latest series is actually more an effort to recover some control from the arms of chaos.

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Ding Wu:Forming China’s First Heavy Metal Band

Ding Wu:Tang Dynasty’s lead singer

Tang Dynasty, recognized as the first heavy metal band in mainland China. Tang Dynasty got fame with their first album “A Dream Re-turn to Tang Dynasty”. This album was sold

about 2,000,000 authentic copies throughout Asia and abroad, not including the multitudes more of pirated copies. With their part progressive rock and artistic metal and part traditional Chinese vocal techniques with lyrical poetry and musical arrangements, Tang Dynas-ty soon became the icon of Chinese hard rock music. Ding Wu, Tang Dynasty’s lead singer talked about forming China’s first heavy metal group to us:9

How and why did you start Tang Dynasty? In the early years of Deng Xiaoping’s ‘reform and opening up’ policy, some Western music began to flow into Chi-na. I was a fine art student back then, and we listened to a lot of music when we were painting: Bob Dylan, The Roll-ing Stones, and The Beatles. With the highly influence of their music, I started to think of having my own great rock band. Most people think that rock ‘n’ roll first appeared in China around 1982, but there were already a few bands exist at that time and they were all just getting started and in their early forms. I joined a few of them, like Bu Dao Weng (Self-Righting Doll) in 1984 and Hei Bao (Black Pan-ther) in 1987. Then, in 1988, I formed Tang Dynasty.

What was playing metal music in China like back then? It was hard. In 1989, we released our first album, but the media at that time not gave us any attention. We couldn’t go on TV because of our long hair. Almost all the people in the media thought we were rebels who might act out in opposition to the government.

They were worried we’d say something bad or give aggressive speeches and start troubles.

What does music mean to you? The way I think about metal is that it’s just another form of art and another means of ex-pression. Bands like Metallica and Megadeth, their power of their music, and their way of sen-timents expression really influenced me. Some-times, people’s way of trying and expressing their different feelings can also promote a pro-gressive society. We were the first metal band in China so I believe we did help spread the genre in some way. At the beginning, most of our performanc-

es were at small parties, and our major audi-ences were students and young people. But these days, as the whole nature of society has changed, things are getting better.

Are there any differences between Chi-nese metal and the scene in other coun-tries around the world? The metal scene in Western countries is much more commercial, like the staging, the venues, and the promotion. All of them are systemized. In China, we don’t really have decent stage equipment, like quality lights or speakers, or good places to perform. Most metal music is still underground and played in bars or at parties, and I feel like the mainstream media here still refuses to accept the genre.

Traditional Chinese elements are some-times being employed in your music, is that a unique feature for the band? We are trying to play various types of mu-sic, something that makes us stand out. It’s not enough just to copy other people’s music or imi-tate what they do. Chinese bands should think about absorbing elements from their own coun-try and culture, like Peking opera.

You’ve been involved in the local metal scene for more than two decades now. How far do you think it has come? Metal is a part of rock music. Some people say that Chinese rock has gone through a golden age, but I don’t agree. It’s been 21 years since our first album and metal music is still but a seed. I don’t see many good metal bands here. It’s not really there yet. Perhaps metal as a genre is more difficult for Chinese people be-cause we are more conservative. We don’t need to feel embarrassed about it though. Before, because of things outside of music – the me-dia, society, and people’s perceptions – the seed couldn’t grow. Now I’ve got more hope and be-lieve that one day it will grow into a big tree.

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Hideaki Ishi

Gangster to Musican

DJ Krush is one of those names that closely related to the qual-ity end of hip hop, making beats that push the genre in new direc-tions and leaving contemporaries slack-jawed. DJ Krush – real name Hideaki Ishi – followed the tra-ditional hip hop road to success, from gangster to musician.

Gangster to Musican

Do you have any special plan for your third trip to China? I usually have some plans in my head before a show. But then I realized that you cannot fit music into frames, so mostly I take back everything and start play-ing without plan. I love experimental stimulus – it’s like an unexpected chemical reaction.

What were your impressions of China when you performed here before? Comparing to Tokyo? I’ve been to China twice for my music live tour, and the most impressive thing for me in China was how greedy the audiences are for music. I’ve lived in Tokyo for 45 years and it keeps changing every moment. I sometimes get tired by these transformations. But every time I go back to Tokyo from an international tour, I feel relieved, like ‘Ah, I’m back to reality again.’

Being considered as one of the pioneers of Japanese hip hop, how do you see yourself? It’s been 20 years since hip hop landed in Japan. I personally think there are many young talents and veterans who are interested in and can put their own unique world into sounds and rhyme; many artists are still seeking and making original Japanese hip hop.

What do you think of Japanese hip hop cul-ture today? It’s been 20 years since hip hop landed in Japan. I personally think there are many young talents and veterans who are interested in and can put their own unique world into sounds and rhyme; many artists are still seeking and making original Japanese hip hop.

Is hip hop different in Japan comparing to other countries? Unfortunately, Japanese style of hip hop has no its own identity, which get copied from someone else. Thus, it is very clear that hip hop in Japan will never earn admiration overseas. The Japanese like to be given

their information, but in other countries, I think, there are many people who have the ability to judge things by their own rules. Original music can reach people in countries all over the world, all speaking different languages and from different cultures. It moves people. The shared inspirations and impressions are amazing. There are no boundaries with this art form.Throughout your career, you have worked with many different artists, from DJ Shadow to Mos Def to The Roots. Who have been your favorite artists to work with? Every collaboration remains an exciting memory. Working with DJ Shadow went very smoothly. Even though we lived in different countries with different languages and cultures, we communicated with the dark, sparkling hip-hop sounds that came out of the speakers. It went over the borders – it was enough for us who loved music. I’ll keep treasuring meeting all kinds of people.

What is your own attitude towards a hip-hop DJ? I’ve been seeking my own original hip hop sound. I understand and appreciate the basic format and I love seeking new possibilities. I don’t care what genre my music is.Is jazz as important to you as hip hop? I’ve been influenced by a lot by jazz music. I wanted to express the free and vast style of jazz on the turn-tables. Hip hop wasn’t enough – I need other colors.

Can you tell us what you’re working on at present? I ran around the world touring in 2009, so this year I’ll focus on creating things, including my own album. I’ve never really done anything but music, but recently I’ve also started photography. The world of photogra-phy is so deep, I find it interesting and it influences my music a lot. But I’m beaten – I shouldn’t have started it. I easily get bent on things as I’m kind of a monoma-niac. I want to do it more naturally.

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Xia Li

Simplify the LifeDouble for Happiness

In order to embody the philoso-phy of “little habits can save the earth”, the first project Xia Li is do-ing after establishing her own web-site is the Green Design Contest. She makes good use of her wide connections in entertainment indus-try to let celebrities design easy and convenient environment-friendly products for people in daily uses, which aims at making environmen-tal protection becomes fashionable for the public, especially for the young people. People become much more fa-miliar with “Simplify the Life” envi-ronmental protection activity with the help of celebrities’ influence and advocacy on it. “‘Simplify the Life’ is hoping to reduce the chance for doing badly for the earth as much as we can. I didn’t know it is still current con-suming when you shut down the computer but left the power on. Thus, we should start from every little thing to protect our environ-ment. Little thing but is of great significance.” “We advocate people to under-stand that working is not the whole of your life, we should slow down the pace of life,we should slow down the pace of life, such as do not take cell phone with you during the lunch time,

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Besides a well-known host in China, Xia Li also have her own produc-tion company and working as a CEO of her own website---WaSai.com. The main theme for the WaSai.com aims at increasing public awareness on environmental protection. “The Earth is on its bad condition right now, it is about the time for all the citizens across the world to reduce burden for the earth. The environmental protection activity we come up with on our website---“Simplify the Life” is not only emphasis on eco-logical protection, but also stress mind and soul protection.

it will affect your health if talking about your work through cell phone while you are eating. Never forget to care about yourself--- that’s what we are advocating in “Simplify the Life” environmental protection activities. Through “Simplify the Life”, Xia Li discovered that people, no matter ce-lebrities or ordinary people, are willing to do public benefit activities that are related to the environmental protec-tion, but only no platform for them to bring their efforts into full play. “‘Sim-plify the Life’ activity is just this kind of platform. We want to popularize en-vironmental protection knowledge by making good use of the philosophy of “Simplify the Life” activity, and trying to change people’s way of life. We ad-vocate simple and easy environmental protection solutions for people to do it on the daily basis, like little to drive an

overhead traveling crane every week, turn off lights when leaving, and so on. People could do it as long as he or she has a little environmental aware-ness.” Xia Li said. “All we have to do is to let these “voices” shows up repeatedly before the public, hoping people could get used to these “voices”, and bring more and more people join the environ-mental activities, so that’s the reason why I invite a lot of celebrities to par-ticipate in our “Simplify the Life” en-vironmental protection activities. We want to spread our philosophy of envi-ronmental protection wider and faster with the help of their influences. Love yourself is the basis for bet-ter loving others, and that is also the attitude we should have to our friends and family.

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Li Songsong is already becomes one of his generation’s best painters at the age of 36. His photorealist works are often associated with political innuen-do --- major icons and landmarks, in-cluding Mao Zedong and Tiananmen. He has been described as a painter for whom ‘historical issues have become

central to artistic issues’.

Li SongsongA Hot Painter in Beijing

Cool Gaze On History And Its Images

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Prior to his solo show at Pace, Li had shown for years at respected exhibitors Galerie Urs Meile. He is equally sought after by Western collectors, who view his paintings as a form of highbrow chinoiserie, and Chinese collectors who see his work as sophisticated, if twisted, objects of cultural nostalgia.

But as we listen to Li Songsong on a cloudy afternoon in 798, the artist strikes us as anything but overtly po-litical or socially engaged. Or is he pos-ing, we wonder?

When asked whether his massive paintings, executed on canvas and aluminium, reflect social changes in China, he replies: ‘When working, one should answer one’s own questions.’

Even with the most perceptive of interviewers – including Ai Weiwei and Feng Boyi – the painter is well known for his trademark indirectness. When we ask him about his artistic influenc-es, he responds similarly: ‘We are in-fluenced by everyone we come in con-tact with.’

The artist is neatly and precisely dressed in a blue sweater, white dress shirt, blue jeans and black shoes. He speaks in a voice so low that it is near-ly inaudible and occasionally seems to collapse willingly into the hollowness of his own throat. While talking, he examines his listener in the same way a jeweler might look into a gemstone – with a kind of frozen affection and sterilized curiosity.

This sense of distance is implicit in each and every one of his paintings and the results are both refreshing and sad. His work ‘Oxygen Mask’ is taken from something that many of us flip through without a second thought – an airplane safety manual. But, at over four square meters and painted in cool, thick, creamy colors, the image of a mother strapping an oxygen mask over her son strikes the viewer with a heightened sense of moment. The re-

constructed image is by turns loving, functional and ominous.

So how does he go about choosing the media images he ultimately decides to paint? ‘I get that question a lot,’ Li replies. ‘I don’t really have a method. When a particular image gives me a feeling, I paint it.’

But he doesn’t paint it to look like the original. He deconstructs the im-age into rectangles and then paints one rectangle at a time (with each one spontaneously assigned a distinct color scheme). During the process – which takes about one month – the original picture is shattered, pixilated and re-constructed into blocks of fresh color.

The paint is often applied so thickly that the surface of the work takes on a sculptural quality.

‘I’m not painting these images as a kind of social documentary,’ the artist tells Time Out. ‘Painting is not the best medium for that.’ Instead, he trans-forms images from the mass media into personalized keepsakes – private displays of affection that viewers get to spy on.

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Xiaoshuai Wang

As one of the so-called ‘Sixth Generation’ of Chinese film-makers, Wang Xiaoshuai first burst onto the scene in the early ’90s with a low budget psychological

drama “The Days”. Despite several brushes with the censors, Wang has since managed to create a body of work that touches on everything from the struggles of modern city life --- “Beijing Bicycle” to recent Chinese history --- “Shanghai Dreams” and the moral dilemmas of ordinary people --- “In Love We Trust”.

Life’s Work

You’ve said that “Shanghai Dreams” was based on your own family’s experi-ences. So is it one of your favorite mov-ies? “Shanghai Dreams” was a movie that I wanted to shoot for a long time, because it was so connected with my childhood. Just like in the movie, my family moved from Shanghai to Guizhou under the Third Line Of Defence policy. The government was scared that Russia would invade and attack the cities and industrial centers, so they moved a lot of factories to the countryside so they people know this happened so I was desperate to tell them. What part of that story appeals to you in your movie --- “In Love We Trust” After I finished “Shanghai Dreams”, most of my friends were moving to the next stage of their lives by having kids and settling down, which forced me to think about it more. The family structure in China is very different from our parents’ generation, and it’s much tougher now. In the movie, there are lots of pressures and feelings of help-lessness about life, which express the typi-cal Chinese feeling. I’ve never made a movie just about love. I’m more interested in family relationships, or ‘love’ in a broader sense. In my new movie “Rizhao Chongqi”, I address the love between a father and his son, a father who constantly questions his own decisions in the past. It’s the uncertainty of life that at-tracts me. How do you motivate yourself to get movies made? My love for film is the motivation for me

to keep working on it. Moreover, I also have a very positive attitude. If I have enough interest and energy, along with the ability to ask someone to help me get the film made, I will keep trying. Making movies is a form of expression for me and I’m happy when I’m doing it. Can you tell us about your latest proj-ect? I’ve just finished filming my new movie “Rizhao Chongqi”, and will spend another couple of months editing it. There was a lot of investment in this movie, which allowed me to use some famous stars. The way in Chinese movie field now is that distributors will use the number stars you have to judge how many screens they will show your mov-ie on. But I’m still confident that if a director can tell a story well then an audience will respond favorably. Is it difficult to find investment for your own movies? It’s not too difficult to find companies that have the same sort of goals as me in the end. Most of my movies may probably have a smaller share of the market than the mainstream ones, but I think there’s a place for both of them, and there are always people out there willing to fund them. What sort of stories inspires you to make movies? Being a filmmaker is a dream for lots of people when they are young. In the 1980s, the films of the Fifth Generation of directors really shocked me. Making films is a way for me to express myself, so I relate to movies the same way a musician does a piece of music, or an artist his painting.

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