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EDITION

2023, Winner

school

Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts, China

links

@tongniu98

China's logistics and courier industry is a wonder of the world, and the people who work in it were once in an era of high urbanisation. Leaving small and medium-sized counties to move into the big cities, a migration associated with modernisation and dreams. I photographed the courier industry mainly in the Jiangsu region of China, which is home to couriers mostly from the northern Jiangsu and northern Anhui regions, who weave a network of fellow countrymen. They expect to glimpse the excitement of the outside world, to grow old under the passage of time, and to pin this dream on their offspring, of which I am a tiny microcosm. From the end of 2020 to the beginning of 2023, I communicated with them, went into their homes and walked back to their birthplace. In an urbanised way, I go back and photograph the places of work in the city, the temporary homes under the roof, the sickness and the places of birth. Photography gives me the courage to step into reality, to shoot solemnly, and it is the only thing I can do.