Zhuang Xueben

Zhuang Xueben (; 1909–1984) was one of China's first ethnographic photographers. In the 1930s, he left his native Shanghai and travelled to western China to photograph the minority people in four provinces: Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu, and Qinghai. During the almost ten years of ethnographic research, he took more than ten thousand photographs and wrote a vast amount of materials including research reports, travel notes, and journals. In 1941, he held a photographic exhibition on Xikang in several Chinese cities and about 200,000 people attended the exhibit. These photos and written materials have become a valuable source for anthropologists to the ethnic groups in western China.
Introduction.
Zhuang Xueben was born in Shanghai in 1909. He left the city in 1930 and began to photograph the minority regions of western China. He mainly travelled in the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu, and Qinghai. Although he accompanied the 9th Panchen Lama on his journey to Tibet, he was never able to enter Tibet because of political difficulties between Tibet and China. He lived for long periods of time with the 16 minority groups he photographed, each of which spoke a different language. Many of his subjects were Tibetan Buddhists. The first trip took him nine months.
One of his goals was to make the Chinese world aware of these peoples and lands so they would come to value them. He photographed them with great dignity and empathy. Unlike so many “ethnographic” or “anthropological” artists, Zhuang Xueben was able to close the distance between himself and his subjects. He saw their beauty and recorded it. Although self-taught, he has an artist's eye. He was aware of the importance and rigor of good art, and he wrote about the connection of art and science. He kept meticulous notes about his travels and his work.
As Chinese art critic and writer Zhu Qi says, “Zhuang Xueben’s ‘anthropological’ photography is comparable to any western photography of its kind in the last century.” These works from the 1930s represent one of the richest periods of Zhuang Xueben’s photographic work. At a time when China itself was in turmoil, caught between the Japanese invasion on the east and north and British dominance in Tibet, the western border regions of China were vital to China’s security. They were also virtually unknown lands to most Chinese, and the government itself. Curious, perhaps deeply patriotic, Zhuang Xueben, as a young man, was conscious of the importance of these regions and their fascination.
Due to the Cultural Revolution, Zhuang Xueben’s work lay unseen and unknown for many years. Recently, Chinese scholars have re-discovered his work, and Zhuang Xueben’s son, Zhuang Wenjun, has been instrumental in retrieving and preserving his father’s work.
Evaluations.
An equal relationship and deep communication with the people he photographed. He lived and ate with those people, exchanged presents with them, made them happy by playing a gramophone... and letting them view his pictures. He gave them pictures. People were astonished by their pictures and passed the pictures on to others and this created a believable, warm atmosphere between them. It also made his pictures vivid, nature, relaxed, genuine, reflecting a true living status of the western minorities. (Zhuang Wenjun 庄文骏, Zhuang Xueben's son)
These unmarked regions, without marked positions or names on a map, were referred to as the “uninhabited land”. In the first half of the twentieth century, free-lance photographers who visited this “uninhabited land” on the borders of China were few enough to be easily counted. Among them, Zhuang Xueben's “anthropological” photography is comparable to any western photography of its kind in the last century.
His photography was more a depiction of the spirit of the locals, whether the headman, the beautiful girl, the Kangba man, or the wrinkled elder. They all embody a sense of calmness, self-sufficiency and purity. They stare into the camera with serenity – there is neither anxiety nor attempt at performance. They seem to enjoy the ritual of looking at themselves, and noticing time passing by peacefully. Looking at the people in these pictures, one has the wish to become like them, to be able to attain that pure and noble satisfaction of being. (Zhu Qi *朱其, Chinese art critic and writer)