Sichuan artist Zhang Kechun took his first walk along the Yellow River in 2008 and had an impulse to photograph the waterway, which is considered the root of the nation.

Believing that most people seldom stop to contemplate the winding river, Zhang wished to make a difference with a respectful gaze.

This initial impulse turned into a project that spanned more than two years, starting in 2010.

Taking a large format camera and a tripod, Zhang traveled on a fold-up bicycle. He followed the river from its estuary, through the coastal plains of Shandong Province, and then westward to its origin in the mountains of Qinghai Province. He made more than 10 journeys, each taking about a month.

The resulting series of pictures has since been exhibited across the world. This month, 19 pieces from the project make up the exhibition The Metaphorical River at the top-floor gallery of 10 Corso Como. The show, which will run until August 26, is also Zhang's first solo exhibition in Shanghai.

 

Well-represented

The project lives up to its title by being about far more than just the river in its physical form - in fact, the river does not make an appearance in a considerable number of the images. The selection is more about the cities, towns and villages along the river, their people and the kind of lives these people have.

Points along the route represented include a house in the middle of the sea in Shandong Province, a man fishing in Shanxi Province, a Buddha head (pictured above) in a coalfield in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, a sculpture beside a village house in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, people in a cabin in Shaanxi Province, and a landscape painting on a wall in Gansu Province. When viewed together, they paint a haunting picture of life along the river.

The subjects, though highly diverse, share a commonality of desolation and loneness. The Buddha head in the middle of the coalfield appears to come from nowhere and bless nobody. Seemingly new and well-made sculptures are unlikely neighbors to decrepit village houses that look as if they were abandoned long ago. Identical miniature pyramid-shaped cemeteries along a road in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region extend all the way to the horizon.

A bird's-eye view of monotonous high-rises in Lanzhou, Gansu Province, reveals a city that resembles a hundred others in China.

Photos from a series on the Yellow River by Zhang Kechun, currently on show at 10 Corso Como Photos: Liao Fangzhou/GT

Surreal sense

At the same time, the works feel somewhat otherworldly due to an omnipresent haziness. This is deliberate - in order to add a soft and gentle touch to the works, Zhang chose cloudy, gloomy days to shoot, and overexposed the photographs.

Some of the more straightforward presentations of the river are just as fascinating, bringing home both the vitality of life along the river, but also the perilous nature of existence along parts prone to devastating floods.

For example, one 2011 picture features an elderly man fishing from the top of a pavilion in the river - the pavilion itself is already mostly underwater, and just a few meters below the man's feet lies a quiet vastness of grey.

For curator and art critic Shi Hantao, the works are a poetic narrative of the living condition of Chinese at the moment. The juxtaposition of abstractly presented people, often shot from a long distance, and desolated landscapes of northern China speak of detachment and absurdity.

"The artist uses his work to eulogize the Yellow River, and he subtly connects each individual with the era and the nation through this very metaphor," Shi wrote in the exhibition foreword.

 

Environmental awareness

Zhang did not intend to document environmental destruction in the first place, but it turned out to be an unavoidable theme.

Although he wanted to photograph his ideal version of the river, he kept coming across pollution.

This makes A Landscape Painting On a Wall (above), taken in Gansu Province in 2010, an ironically sad exhibit. On a shabby wall by the road, a nicely drawn Chinese-style painting depicting beautiful mountains by a clear, meandering river is disturbed by dirt and vertical streaks of what looks like sprayed paint.

Concerned the works might appear pessimistic, Zhang was careful to imbibe them with a message of hope.

An example of this is White Deer Under a Cooling Tower, in which three beautiful creatures, one mature and two small, play with each other under the industrial structure. The mist is pervasive, the grass far from lush, but the trees at the sides remind us that some things are evergreen.

Date: Until August 26, 10 am to 10 pm

Venue: Top Floor, 10 Corso Como

Address: 1717 Nanjing Road West

南京西路1717号

Call 6286-1018 for details