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China Imagined
Ruben Lundgren (NL)
Yining He (CN)
Text:
Ruben Lundgren
He Yining
Photography:
Ron Magielse
Design:
Rob van Hoesel
Production:
NPN Printers (NL)
Supported by:
Stichting BredaPhoto
The Western imagination of China has been defined throughout history by 13th-century explorers such as Marco Polo and modern politicians such as Henry Kissinger. But also through stories that arose from the imaginations of writers who had never set foot in China themselves, but whose work nevertheless strongly influenced the Western view of China.
With China’s increasing visibility on the world stage, a wave of discussions and misunderstandings has arisen about its politics, economy, technology and culture. With the exhibition China Imagined, the two China-based curators Yining He (CN) and Ruben Lundgren (NL) have brought together a relevant selection of contemporary photographers who have been active in China over the past ten years. In doing so, they show the ambivalence, complexity and diversity of Chinese society.
China Imagined tries to understand the current construction of Chinese imagination and to investigate the problem of photographic representation in intercultural contexts. In times of uncertain international relations amid a global pandemic, the exhibition seeks to help bridge the undeniable gap of misunderstanding between the Western and Chinese audiences.
Ruben Lundgren is a photographer and curator who was based in Beijing for more than 20 years. Since 2025 he is back in the Netherlands. He is renowned for his work within the conceptual photography duo WassinkLundgren and gained significant attention with publications such as Empty Bottles (2007) and Tokyo Tokyo (2010). Lundgren completed a master’s degree in photography at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 2011. His relocation to China has profoundly influenced his career, leading him to engage deeply with Chinese contemporary photography. He currently works as a curator for the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam. He used to work as a photojournalist for Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant and as an independent curator of Chinese photography. Together with Martin Parr he co-edited The Chinese Photobook (2015). Other publications include Hlleo? (2018) and MeNu (2018) a tasty collection of Chinese vernacular food photography. As a guest curator of BredaPhoto 2020 he curated China Imagined offering 24 contemporary photography projects from China including the sticker album Wow Taobao. In 2021 he edited the book Ellen Thorbecke: From Peking to Paris, and published Real Dreams with his journalistic works made all over China. In recent years he focusses on vernacular photography resulting in the book Dream Machine (2023) and Wildman Fever(2024). His photographs and books are collected by various private and public collections and have also been exhibited at international galleries and museums including FOAM photography museum (Amsterdam), The Archive of Modern Conflict (London) and Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (Beijing).
Curator and writer Yining He graduated from the London College of Communication. For over a decade she has been working independently specialising in photographic and visual art. Her practice is principally focused on the way in which photography is able to freely straddle the boundaries of fine art, responding to and raising questions about contemporary, historical and social issues through interdisciplinary means. These curatorial projects have been held in museums, galleries and other institutes in both China and Europe. Among her most recognised projects are Photography in the British Classroom (2016), The Port and the Image (2017), and Abode of Anamnesis (2019).