Between Here and Home
curated by Alan Chin

What does it mean to be Chinese in the contemporary moment of technological transformation as well as dangerous nationalist imagery? InBetween Here and Home, seven photographers — one Chinese, three American-born-Chinese, one who emigrated to Queens from China as a young child, a Taiwanese Canadian, and a Filipina who has worked in Hong Kong — share their perspectives on various aspects of Chinese life and culture, both in China and in the diaspora, including New York City’s Chinatowns. They document traditional communities facing tremendous change, personal journeys of discovery, and political conflict.

About the Artists
Alan Chin was born and raised in New York City’s Chinatown. Since 1996, he has worked in China, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Central Asia, and Ukraine, as well as extensively in the United States. He is a contributing photographer to The New York Times and many other publications, an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and his work is in the collection of the Museum Of Modern Art. The New York Times twice nominated Chin for the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Kosovo conflict in 1999 and 2000. Currently, Chin is also Managing Director of Facing Change: Documenting DETROIT, a community-based photojournalism initiative that is part of Facing Change: Documenting America (FCDA). Additionally, Chin is both writing and photographing a book on his ancestral region of Toishan in southern China, and is a founding partner of Red Hook Editions: A Publishing Community.

Xiaomei Chen has had her photographs published in major publications both in America and China, inlcuding The Washington PostThe Dallas Morning News, and The Plain Dealer. Inspired by anthropologist William Hinton, Chinese Xiaomei Chen started her project on Puzhu, a Hakka village in South China in 2008. She believes that lives in this tiny village reveal some truth about China, and that it is valuable to document the changes Puzhu is experiencing. This on-going multimedia project includes a book, a video, a flash demonstration about the village’s historical and cultural background, and a collection of family portraits to show the village has shrunk over the past two decades. Chen will continue documenting the village.

Edward Cheng is a native New Yorker, a freelance computer programmer and a seasoned globetrotting backpacker. Through photography, he works on long term projects documenting Christian Holy Weeks and Easters around the world, as well as Dia de los Muertos in Mexico and Eldridge Street in the Lower Manhattan of New York. Cheng is a teaching assistant and a permanent fixture at the International Center of Photography; he regularly assists for dark room masters Steve Anchell, Brian Young and Chuck Kelton.

Xyza Cruz Bacani is a Filipina street photographer, known for her black-and-white photographs of Hong Kong streetlife. She is one of the Magnum Foundation’s Photography and Human Rights Fellows and is the recipient of a resolution passed by the Philippines House of Representatives in her honor, HR No. 1969. Bacani was selected as one of the BBC’s 100 Women of the World 2015, 30 Under 30 Women Photographers 2016, Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2016, and a Fujifilm Ambassador. Bacani grew up in Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya, the eldest of three children. She studied nursing before leaving the Philippines to raise funds for the education of her siblings. At the age of 18, she joined her mother in Hong Kong, working as a nanny for an affluent family in the Mid-Levels. Bacani started taking casual photographs after purchasing her first camera with a loan from her employer. Her interest in photography developed while she was still in college, but she was unable to afford her own camera at the time. Bacani met her mentor, San Francisco-based photographer Rick Rocamora, on a Filipino photographers’ group on Facebook. Rocamora initially thought she was “just another rich kid who had nothing else to do but shoot” but was surprised when he learned what Bacani did for a living. Among Bacani’s various street photography images of Hong Kong society, she covered the 2014 Hong Kong protests in Central and documented the lives of other domestic helpers at Bethune House Migrant Women’s Refuge in Jordan, Hong Kong.

Corky Lee is a second-generation Chinese-American. He grew up in the borough of Queens, New York where his father was a welder turned laundryman and his mother worked as a seamstress. Lee’s interest in photojournalism was first sparked in high school in 1970 when he saw a well-known photograph that commemorated the 1869 completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. Lee was struck by the fact that there were no Chinese workers documented in the picture despite the fact that thousands of them had worked and sacrificed their lives in its construction. From this moment on, he was devoted to making the accomplishments of Asian Pacific Americans more visible. In July 2008, Lee went to Promontory Point, Utah, where the original railroad photograph had been taken. In a bid for what he called “photographic justice,” he reshot the picture with 400 Chinese Americans from all across the country, correcting their absence from 133 years before. The main goal of Lee’s work is to chronicle and explore the diversity and nuances of Asian American culture overlooked by mainstream media and to ensure that Asian American history is included as a part of American history. Lee’s work has been widely recognized and has had a profound influence, shaping American perceptions of Asian American society. In 1988, former New York City Mayor David Dinkins dedicated May 5th to honoring Lee’s body of work. Lee was honored a second time with May 7, 1993 being announced as “Corky Lee Day” to again commemorate his fine work on behalf of the Asian American community. Lee’s work has been featured in Time MagazineThe New York TimesThe Village Voice, and Associated Press, as well as various exhibitions throughout US cities and college campuses. Lee has also worked with Two Bridges Neighborhood Council in Chinatown as a community organizer.

Annie Ling, born in Taipei, is a Canadian documentary photographer and artist currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Ling’s photography has been featured in publications such as FriezeAmerican Photography, Magenta Flash Forward, The Wall Street Journal, Internazionale, and Die Zeit, among others. She has lectured at Columbia University, CUNY Brooklyn College, International Center of Photography, Ryerson University School of Image Arts, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and has appeared on Al Jazeera America, Sino Vision, China Daily, “Where I’m From” (CUNY Graduate School of Journalism’s pilot radio show), and National Public Radio / RÚV Iceland. Most recently, The National Museum of Iceland held a solo exhibition of her series “Independent Mothers,” now part of the museum’s permanent collection. Ling’s debut solo exhibition, “A Floating Population,” at New York City’s Museum of Chinese in America featured over eighty images spanning four years of work. Her projects have traveled widely to exhibitions in South Korea, Germany, Finland, Hungary, Brazil, Belgium, Iceland, China, Canada, and USA. Ling is the recipient of the first Skammdegi AIR Award in Iceland and a New York Foundation of the Arts fellowship for photography. Previously, she was a fellow of Reflexions Masterclass, an international laboratory investigating the evolution of the language of visual representation and photography. She is also a recipient of a Director’s Fellowship from The International Center of Photography.

An Rong Xu is a New York City-based photographer and director. Born in China and raised in New York City’s Chinatown, Xu explores the world around him through his unique cultural perspective. Xu’s work is rooted in the beauty of the ordinary, capturing a rich cinematic stillness in his photography and a passionate ethereal journey in his films. Bringing with him a vision for creating emotional narratives, Xu shares a deeper look into the lives of his subjects with a sense of trust and candor, shown through personal moments and words unspoken. Xu has photographed and directed for publications and companies such as: TIME Magazine, GQ Taiwan, The New York Times, Instagram, airbnb, Underarmour, Google, and Rolling Stone.

For further information or to schedule a visit to the show outside of open hours, please contact Alan at alanschin@yahoo.com



Join our mailing list.

675 3rd Ave,
32nd floor,
New York, NY 10017

info@chashama.org
© 2024
Privacy Policy