Great Leaps Forward unveils a series of photos drawn from a plastic bag bought in a Beijing flea market in 2016. Sealed tightly with a knot, the bag had settled there unnoticed for many decades. Upon opening the bag, over 300 photos were discovered, taken by an anonymous member of the Xi’an Physical Education University’s department of Photography. All the images, meticulously depicting various athletes in action, often defying gravity, were shot on the same field during a bright day of June 1960.
To date, these images are the only photographic record that collector and artist Thomas Sauvin found from the time of The Great Leap Forward (1958-1962). During these years, a chaotic industrialization campaign meant to transform China from an agrarian economy to a new communist regime rooted in industry and large-scale agricultural production led to the deadliest famine of human history. Any photographic documentation from these years remains extremely rare.
In this posthumous collaboration with an anonymous photographer, this publication invites us to contemplate a strangely metaphorical aerial ballet on the margins of history.
《大跃进》解密了2016年淘自北京跳蚤市场一塑料袋里的系列照片。这个袋子被紧紧地打结密封着，几十年来一直无人问津。袋子里有300多张照片，是由一佚名西安体育学院摄影系人员拍摄。这些照片均拍摄于1960年6月的一晴日的同一场地，细腻地捕捉了运动员们的各式动作，通常是反重力的动态瞬间。
迄今为止，这些影像是收藏家和艺术家苏文发现的关于大跃进时期(1958-1962年)唯一的摄影记录。在那些年里，一场由共产主义新政权发起的，旨在将中国从农业经济扭转为工业和集体农业经济的紊乱社会主义建设运动，导致了人类历史上最致命的饥荒。任何关于那些年月的摄影文献都极为罕见。
在这场与该无名摄影师的身后合作中，《大跃进》邀约我们于历史边缘凝视一场吊诡隐喻的空中芭蕾。
17 x 33 cm / 128 pages
Publication date: November 2019
Text in English and Chinese
Published by Silvermine
In a first edition of 750
Design: Julia
Printed by Maestro-Grafiche Antiga
ISBN: 978-2-9570118-0-3
