Affection is Better than Depth of Field —— After the photo exhibition "Towards Happiness —— Wu Jianxin Focus on Ecological Immigrants in Ningxia"

Affection is Better than Depth of Field —— After the photo exhibition "Towards Happiness —— Wu Jianxin Focus on Ecological Immigrants in Ningxia"

Wang Xiaojing.

In 2008, Ningxia began to implement the "Xihaigu" immigration project. The villages of Xiji, Haiyuan, Lund and Tongxin in the southern mountainous areas are all located in the depths of the mountains. Due to the difficulty of draught and road, the villagers' life is very difficult, which has aroused great concern of the party and * *. In order to improve people's living environment, the state has implemented the western migration plan. How will these immigrants leave their land and homes for generations and move towards a new life? Photographer Wu Jianxin captured the creative opportunity in this changing process with the artist's sensitivity.

20 18 is a bumper harvest year in Wu Jianxin. Just after New Year's Day, he began to prepare for the photo exhibition "Towards Happiness-Wu Jianxin Focus on Ecological Immigrants in Ningxia". He selected 300 masterpieces from tens of thousands of works taken in the past 65,438+00 years, and arranged them into two parts: the black, white and gray background before relocation and the color after relocation. These two parts form a sharp contrast, which not only embodies the differences but also forms a unified and perfect structure, showing his unique photographic perspective and creative style.

65438+ 10 16, we stood on the second floor of Yinchuan Art Museum, enjoying the exquisite photography. From the series of works "It's Difficult to Leave Home", we can see that those who migrate, from the pain and reluctance of being far away from their hometown, are striding with heavy steps, and slowly walk through familiar paths with the migrating team, and will soon settle in a different place of their hometown. Among them, there are moments when the old man turned his back to wipe his eyes, scenes of young people packing things, children who don't know whether they are happy or worried, contrasts between mountains and plains, contrasts between rural roads and cement roads in immigrant villages, and an ancient tree at the head of the village silently looks at people's distant backs ... All these will have nothing to do with people because of the distance, and people will no longer set foot on the paths trodden by their ancestors, and the villages behind them will return to pure nature.

Each photo tells a story. The audience seems to be at the scene of the relocation of immigrants, so close to the busy villagers in the relocation, and their psychological complex noise seems to be audible. What caused this psychological * * * sound? A thin photo condenses the ups and downs of people's lives and truly reflects the human landscape created by people walking in nature. From hometown to foreign land, the brand laid all the way was recorded by Wu Jianxin with a lens. Just like the author of their relocation history, he recorded the track of their life changes bit by bit, and it is amazing that photographs can show their charm so much.

Because of my familiarity with the land of "Xihaigu", the people in those photos are like familiar neighbors. I feel that they responded to the national immigration policy and moved to a new home happily. The mountains behind them are still their solid backing. Those life scenes that once existed in time and space, such as fetching water, collecting firewood, cutting wheat, raising fields, herding sheep and ploughing fields, have become warm memories under the starry sky yesterday; They have learned some unknown life scenes from the fields and are creating a new life with their hands. In the process of transformation, people's joys and sorrows have been truly displayed in Wu Jianxin's lens. He doesn't need to process, decorate or hide anything, but accurately captures and freezes people's subtle emotional changes according to his thinking direction, so that people, things and things in the photo can talk freely and communicate with the viewer. The content discussed by the audience conforms to the description characteristics of photos with images as the language.

In 2008, Wu Jianxin's first photo taken at the immigration scene extended his creative path in the next decade. In 20 18, what kind of psychological reaction will it be to select 300 works from tens of thousands of photos? Each photo records the time and place he took, the mental shock he experienced, and the ups and downs of these emotions when he saw those homes in ruins, when people took off their sad mood, stretched their brows and smiled with joy and expectation.

From black and white to colorful, it is the change of color, the change of people's mood and the change of photographer's psychology. He chose different lights and colors to show people's life after moving, and used colors to tell people that they are full of yearning and expectation for a new life: when they come to the plain, people's hearts are spacious and the road ahead is clear, just like plating a layer of light on their lives. In the new immigrant village, people's greatest happiness comes from clean tap water. Not only that, the purple walls of children's schools, the white work clothes of women, the green uniforms of people who go to work in enterprises, and so on, a series of new life scenes float in front of the audience, lively and interesting! Looking at Wu Jianxin's photos reflecting the immigration project, I once again have a new understanding of photography: the documentary method of photography has such great power that both the subtle feelings of the characters and the four seasons scenery of mountains and rivers can be gathered in the lens, recording the extension and change of time and space in such a meticulous way, reproducing the truth of life and its artistic charm with artistic beauty that is not deliberately carved, focusing on life with the lens, achieving art through light and shadow, and perfectly interpreting photographic works.

In the past ten years, Wu Jianxin has focused on the social effects of political, economic and cultural development of immigrants in real time, measured the migration trajectory of Ningxia with his footsteps, tracked their living conditions with his lens, and wrote his family and national policies during his migration with his resume, which showed his concern, care and care for the changes of immigrants' lives. As an artist, his persistent pursuit is not only his practice of broadening his horizons and serving the people, but also an integral part of the development and changes of society and times in this land.

Therefore, these 300 or even tens of thousands of photos of immigrants have made him a photographer-not only a local participant in the historical process of China's immigration project, but also a global witness with an eye to the future.