Jiang Jian

On 22 August, the exhibition Archives on Orphans opens at the Julian Sander Gallery in Bonn, as part of SaisonstART Bonn 2015. It is the first time the exhibition is displayed at a European venue. The gallery will also host the presentation of Jiang Jian's book of the same title, released in a limited edition with Kettler Publishing.

Photographer Jiang Jian was born in the Henan Province of China. For many years, he devoted himself to recording the process of urbanisation in his previously agricultural home province. After completing the projects Scenes (1986–1996) and Masters (1996–2001), his focus shifted to the documentation of individual lives and their fate within society.

In 2004, his local municipality collaborated with a Buddhist Temple of Shaolin monks to establish an orphanage for children under 16. Jiang Jian accompanied the project with his camera, creating an archive of portraits depicting twelve of the children in five-year intervals. In 48 colour and black-and-white photographs, Archives on Orphans captures the personal stories of twelve extraordinary lives.

For further information visit Julian Sander's Feroz Gallery