COPYRIGHT STATEMENT This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the author’s prior consent. 1 YANGTZE THE MOTHER RIVER Photography, Myth and Deep Mapping By YAN WANG PRESTON A thesis submitted to Plymouth University in partial fulfilment of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY School of Art, Design and Architecture May 2017 2 Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 5 AUTHOR’S DECLARATION 6 ABSTRACT 10 NOTES TO READER 12 INTRODUCTION 15 CHAPTER I 29 YANGTZE THE MOTHER RIVER 29 PART I: ESSENTIAL FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT THE YANGTZE RIVER 31 PART II: SONG OF THE LONG RIVER 35 PART III: YANGTZE LANDSCAPES IN TRADITIONAL CHINA 39 PART IV: YANGTZE LANDSCAPES IN MODERN CHINA: 1949-1980S 47 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 63 CHAPTER II 65 MAPPING AND THE TOPOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE – MY ARTISTIC LINEAGE 65 PART I: THE PROTOCOL 67 PART II: INDIVIDUAL CASE STUDIES 77 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 101 CHAPTER III 104 PHOTOGRAPHING THE YANGTZE – A WIDER CONTEXT 104 PART I: HISTORICAL YANGTZE PHOTOGRAPHY: 1840S–1940S 104 PART II: CRITICAL CONTEMPORARY CHINESE YANGTZE PHOTOGRAPHERS: 1990S - 2016 122 PART III: CRITICAL CONTEMPORARY FOREIGN YANGTZE PHOTOGRAPHERS SINCE THE 2000S 139 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 147 CHAPTER IV 150 FROM A YANGTZE PHOTOGRAPHER TO A YANGTZE SWIMMER 150 THE CHANGING RESEARCH METHODS 150 ROLE I. A YANGTZE PHOTOGRAPHER 153 ROLE II: A YANGTZE SEEKER 169 ROLE III: A YANGTZE SWIMMER 194 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 205 CHAPTER V 209 A RETURN TO PHOTOGRAPHIC MAPPING – THE Y POINTS SYSTEM 209 PART I: THE PHYSICAL REALISATION OF THE Y POINTS SYSTEM 211 PART II: THE Y POINTS SYSTEM EVALUATION 218 PART III: EDITING AND PRESENTING THE WORK 248 PART IV: PUBLIC RESPONSES TOWARDS MOTHER RIVER EXHIBITIONS IN CHINA 254 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 257 3 CONCLUSION 261 NOTE 279 BIBLIOGRAPHY 286 PART I: ENGLISH SOURCES 286 PART II: CHINESE PUBLICATIONS 中文文献索引 301 APPENDIX I ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED. A PORTFOLIO OF MOTHER RIVER EXHIBITIONS ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED. 4 Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest gratitude towards my supervisors Jem Southam and Liz Wells. Your critical insights, rich knowledge and academic rigour guided me through these long and difficult years. You allowed me the maximum creative freedom while always having faith in my ability as an artist. Without your support, neither Mother River nor this thesis could have been made. You are my life-long inspiration. 5 Author’s Declaration At no time during the registration for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy has the author been registered for any other university award without prior agreement of the Graduate Sub- Committee. Work submitted for this research degree at Plymouth University has not formed part of any other degree either at Plymouth University or at another establishment. A programme of advanced study was undertaken. Relevant seminars and conferences were regularly attended at which work was often presented; external institutions were visited for consultation purposes. Solo exhibitions: 2017 Mother River Gallery of Photography Ireland, Dublin Impressions Gallery, Bradford, UK 2015 Mother River China Three Gorges Museum, Chongqing, China Wuhan Art Museum, China The Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Shanghai, China Swatch Faces 2015, the 56th Venice Biennale, Italy Lianzhou Fotofestival, Lianzhou, China 2014 He – River Together Touchstones Gallery, Rochdale, UK Selected group exhibitions: 2016 Mother River Dubai Photo Exhibition, UAE 6 Mother River The 8th Three Shadows Photography Annual Award, Beijing and Xiamen, China Mother River Pondyphoto 2016, Pondicherry, India 2014 Flow – British and Chinese Landscape Artists Xu Space, Chongqing, China Solo exhibition catalogue: Preston, Yan Wang, Mother River (Self-published in Shanghai, 2015) Group exhibition catalogues: Duan, Yuting, Expanded Geographies: 2015 Lianzhoufoto (Beijing: China Nationality Art Photograph Publishing House, 2015) 段，毓婷，扩张的地域：2015 年连州国际摄影节展 (北京: 中国民族摄影艺术出版社， 2015）ISBN: 978-7-5122-0762-2 Dubai Photo Exhibition, HIPA, UAE, 2016 The Three Shadows Photography Art Centre (compilation), Immeasurable: The 2016 Three Shadows Photography Award Exhibition (Hangzhou: Zhejiang Photography Publisher, 2016) 三影堂摄影艺术中心编著，无量 － 2016 年度三影堂奖作品展 (杭州：浙江摄影出版社， 2016) ISBN: 978-7-5514-1388-6 Wells, L (ed.), Flow: Time, Movement, Change (Exhibition catalogue for shows at Sichuan Fine Art Institute, Chongqing and 501 Xu Space, Chongqing, 2014; Jia Ling Jiang Gallery, Nanchong City, China, 2015) 7 利兹，威尔斯， ‘流’:时间，移动，变化 (展览画册) (重庆市四川美术学院及 501 序空 间，2014；南充市嘉陵江美术馆，2015) The Swatch Ltd (compilation), Faces & Traces (Shanghai, 2014) Printed publications in specialist photography magazines: Source to Sea: Yan Preston in The RPS Journal, May 2015/ Volume 155/ Number 5 ISSN: 1468-8670 He, Yining, Walking and Mapping: The Physical Experience of Contemporary Photography, in Art World, July 2015 何，伊宁，’当代摄影的行为体验’，艺术世界， 2015 年 7 月 ISSN: 1005-7722 Yan Wang Preston, ‘Mother River’, in Chinese Photography Magazine, November 2015, pp. 王岩（图文），母亲河， 中国摄影杂志，2015 年 11 月 ISSN: 0529-6420 Conference presentations: 2014 Art of Risk Symposium, Leeds University, UK Paper Title: Mother River 2013 Land/Water International Symposium, Plymouth University, UK Paper Title: Re-mapping the Yangtze River Photography and the Expedition Symposium, Plymouth University, UK Paper Title: Back Home – Landscape & The Expedition 2012 Water Image International Visual Arts Conference, Plymouth University, UK Paper Title: Water as Tao in Contemporary China? 8 Awards: 2016 Nomination Prix Pictet Award Shiseido Photographer Prize Beijing, China 2015 Nomination Prix Pictet Award Selected artist and grant 2015 UK–China Year of Cultural Exchange 2014 Reviewers’ Choice Award FORMAT, Derby, UK Clifton Camera Award FORMAT, Derby, UK Genesis Imaging Award FORMAT, Derby, UK Word count of main body of thesis: 58,083 Signature: Yan Wang Preston Date: 15 May 2018 9 Yangtze The Mother River Photography, Myth and Deep Mapping Yan Wang Preston Abstract 'The Yangtze is China’s Mother River. It is my Mother River.’ This practice-based PhD research was initially motivated by the researcher’s personal search for The Mother River and a critical question in finding her own vision of the river. As the field experiences contradicted the researcher’s expectation of The Mother River, the research methodology changed and led to a new, critical understanding: The Mother River is mythic. This thesis examines the politics and characters of such a myth. It also asks with what research methods and visual strategy can landscape photography interrogate The Mother River myth’s complexities. Between 2010 and 2014, the author conducted eight field trips to the Yangtze River. Initially working observationally, it soon became apparent that this method alone was insufficient in reaching an original understanding of the physical and cultural Yangtze landscapes. A series of tactile interventions within the landscapes were then performed and critically evaluated prior to the next phase of the research, in which the entire 6,211 km of the Yangtze River was photographed at precise 100 km intervals. A new body of photographic work titled Mother River was produced as a 10 result. To test its effect in challenging the myth, Mother River has been staged in 12 international exhibitions and printed in one complete catalogue. Over 80,000 people visited the shows in China. Deep mapping, which combines experiential and contextual research with multi-sensorial emplacement as a key method, emerged from this research process and is argued as a new contribution to the field of photographic research. Meanwhile, the artistic output of this research, Mother River, is the most systematic documentation of the entire river made by one person since the 1840s. Furthermore, it is argued that using the Y Points System as a physical framework and storytelling a visual strategy, Mother River challenges the mythic Yangtze The Mother River with a scale and complexity rarely employed by other photographers. 11 Notes to Reader In this thesis, Pinyin is used to romanise Chinese characters. For example, Guangzhou (广州) is the name used for the city formerly known as Canton. The Chinese personal names follow the Chinese customs of placing the surname first, unless the individual lives in the West and places the surname last. Chinese characters appear for the names of Chinese authors, places and for the Chinese titles of books, journals and articles when they appear for the first time. I am known in China by my Chinese name Wang Yan (王岩), which was my legal name before adopting my husband’s surname and becoming a British citizen. This name is used in most Chinese publications about/of my work. Yan Wang Preston is now my legal name in English. This thesis is written in English, which is not my native language; I have made every effort to ensure correct spelling and grammar throughout. However, I have opted to keep some elements of my ‘Chinglish’ – Chinese English – in order to keep the text true to its non-native origin and to some meanings that can only be expressed in this way. Historical periods in China are typically referred to with their dynastic names. Although such dynasties are not necessarily familiar to some non-Chinese audiences, they are the conventional way to mark historical eras in China. Each dynasty had its own rulers and characters. To make these periods more comparable to Western history, I have also added their Christian era. The images in this thesis are categorised as follows: Ref – reference images and other people’s work. 12 Doc – documentations of my own working process, including snapshots, informal images and film stills. All of the ‘Doc’ images are ©Yan Wang Preston, unless otherwise stated. Map – maps. Table – tables. Plate – images considered part of the formal output of my practice. Some of these images belong to the Mother River series, while others belong to various other series produced during this research.