The project Still China is the outcome of exploring within, and reflecting on, the life and landscape of China. It is not a documentary commission or a rigorous inventory: it is composed of snapshots halfway between street photography, landscape paintings and travel diary.
The photographs were taken during two tours in 2017 and 2018, when, after meeting my spouse, who is a Chinese national, I undertook two long journeys in her home country.
Before leaving, I was unsure but curious. While traveling, I looked for China and its culture beyond mainstream cultural representations and started to question my prior expectations. I set out to record and tried to understand this changing country through photography and my training in architectural engineering, discovering what still remains of its ancient fragile beauty.
I was drawn to the vibrant humanity of villages and towns as much as to the warm and welcoming tones of old wooden houses, or to the quiet immensity of some rural landscapes.
I photographed places and objects laden by history and culture; elsewhere they would be protected and enshrined, but in China, they appeared caught in the turmoil of daily use, very much alive.
As a whole, the project resonates to many of us who are travellers and photographers familiar with the excitement of acting in alienation, posing the question: what does the landscape look like before we understand it?
