O Zhang

"A great deal has changed in China since Mao's regime. During that time art served only as a means of depicting the glory of communism. [...] In this series I combine images with graphic text. The text follows the form used in Cultural Revolution-era propaganda posters: an image bordered with a slogan in bold text below it. The texts that I chose come from a variety of sources. Most are derived from contemporary advertising and signage as well as from Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. The images depict Chinese youth in front of various significant facades wearing T-shirts with phrases in what is often called "Chinglish" [...] Having divided my time equally in recent years between the East and the West, my own experience of my home country is often one of profound ambivalence. These photographs explore that ambivalence by exploiting the collision of my influences and in doing so, the series visually captures the economic and political conflicts in modern day Chinese culture, among them, the identity crisis facing Chinese youth." - O Zhang (for the explanation of the image above click here)