Zhang Xiao: The winner of 2010 TSPA

 About the Artist

Born in 1981 in Yantai city, Shandong province, China, 
Zhang Xiao graduated from the Department of Architecture and Design at Yantai University in 2005. 

Before becoming a photography artist in 2009, he was a photojournalist for Chongqing Morning Post. 

Zhang won the Three Shadows Photography Award in 2010 with They series.
He also received the second Hou Dengke Documentary Photography Award in 2009, 
The Photography Talent Award (France) in 2010 and the Prix HSBC pour la Photographie in 2011 with his Coastline series. 
Zhang’s work has been widely exhibited in China and overseas in recent years.
hang currently lives and works in Chengdu city, Sichuan province, China.

Solo Exhibitions 

2015 “About My Hometown”, Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong
2014 “Coastline”, Zen Foto Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2013 “Shanxi”, Pekin Fine Arts, Beijing, China
“They”, Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong
2012 “Coastline”, 2902 Gallery, Singapore
“Coastline”, Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong

About the work

They, in reality, are a group of very ordinary people. They all have their own lives and careers, but in these photographs, they seem  strange and  absurd, and very unreal. Rapid economic growth is changing their lives, but this growth is changing their emotional worlds even more. Behind the ostentation of the city, there have always been grief and tears, indifference and cruelty. 

I met them by chance and I longed to understand each person's life and experiences. What were they thinking in the moment these photographs were taken? Perhaps everyone has a different answer, and perhaps they have no answer at all. What was I thinking when I took photographs of them? I have no answer either. Because I am one of them, I am also indifferent. Perhaps our daily lives are all absurd. 

I want to understand the meaning of our existence.