Book of the Month: Campaign Child
Book of the Month: Campaign Child
Xiaopeng Yuan
January 16, 2020
© Xiaopeng Yuan 2019 courtesy Loose Joints
The project began already four years ago, when the Shanghai-based photographer was assigned to work on a campaign for a Chinese children's fashion brand: however, when he got to the set, he found western-looking children who he was supposed to photograph in front of a backdrop reminiscent of a suburb in the USA. This is not an unusual approach, because in China the beauty ideal for local fashion brands is oriented towards a western-type flavour. Consequently, the photographer later went on to question the phenomenon in a personal series of his own instigation. This resulted in strange, at times disturbing motifs. “The mixture between feelings of anxiety and childishness is the point that attracts me,” the photographer explains. The graphics and layout of the photo book – which looks rather like a fashion brochure – reflect this idea in a consequent manner: inconsistencies and oddities are deliberately present. “Everything in the book has an appearance of normality, but something isn’t quite right,” the designer, Sarah Piegay Espenon, points out.
The outcome is an idiosyncratic series, where the language of commercial photography is raised to the extreme, to reflect the tawdry consumer behaviour of modern-day China. Furthermore, the pictures deal with the viewer's attitude towards expectation or disappointment, by highlighting new, alienated contexts, which open themselves up to free, associative interpretations.
Xiaopeng Yuan: Campaign Child
48 pages, 25 colur pictures, 21.3 x 27.5 cm
English
Loose Joints (also available as a special edition with prints)
Xiaopeng Yuan+-
Born in 1988, Xiaopeng Yuan lives and works in Shanghai. He studied at the Jiangxi Normal University of Fine Arts. He is co-founder of the Same Paper studio, that focusses on photo books and magazines. More
© Xiaopeng Yuan 2019 courtesy Loose Joints
© Xiaopeng Yuan 2019 courtesy Loose Joints
© Xiaopeng Yuan 2019 courtesy Loose Joints
© Xiaopeng Yuan 2019 courtesy Loose Joints
© Xiaopeng Yuan 2019 courtesy Loose Joints
© Xiaopeng Yuan 2019 courtesy Loose Joints
© Xiaopeng Yuan 2019 courtesy Loose Joints