Yangtze – The Mythical Mother River of China

In this talk hosted by the Manchester China Institute and Manchester Museum, award-winning British-Chinese artist, Dr Yan Wang Preston, will present her long-term photographic project Mother River (2011-2014), for which she photographed the entire 6,211km Yangtze River in China at precise 100km intervals on a large-format film camera.

Dr Preston will begin by briefly retracing the river’s pictorial and literature representation in traditional China. She will then focus on the river’s photographic representation in modern China, particularly the period between 1949 and 1990. Through such historical review, Dr Preston will draw the conclusion that the Yangtze River as the Mother River of China is mythic and constructed through ideologically charged pictorial representations. She will then share the intentions and processes of her Mother River project, including photographs, film from the field trips, and adventure anecdotes.

Dr Yan Wang Preston is a photographic artist interested in the intercultural connections between landscape imagery, ecology, identity and migration. Her work has won many international awards such as the 1st Prize, Syngenta Photography Award and the 1st Prize, Professional Landscape, 2019 Sony World Photography Awards. She has exhibited widely and internationally at venues including Fotofest Biennial 2020, USA, Gallery of Photography Ireland, the 56th Venice Biennale and Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum.

Preston’s monographs are Forest and Mother River (Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2018). She received a PhD in Photography at the University of Plymouth in 2018 and currently lectures at the University of Huddersfield, UK. She is originally trained in Clinical Medicine in Fudan University, China.

The zoom link will be sent on the day of the webinar.