#chen ronghui

Christmas Factory by Chen Ronghui. Photography. 2015. 

Shanghai-based photographer and photo editor of The Paper Chen Ronghui explores human fascination with fairy tale and manufactured wonderlands in various photo series. Photographing everything from lurid theme parks to petrochemical plants, Chen is perhaps best known for his collection Christmas Factory, which earned second place in World Press Photo’s Contemporary Issues Singles category. 

The subject of the series, Wei, coats polystyrene snowflakes with vivid red paint—which Chen captures as an unearthly, drowning hue—in one of the 600 Yiwu factories responsible for 60% of the world’s Christmas decorations. Wei wears a Christmas hat to protect his hair and changes face masks at least six times a day. Though Wei is unsure of exactly what Christmas is, he believes it is foreigners’ version of Lunar New Year. Christmas Factory represents the disconnect between reality and people’s projections of fantasy and entertainment, a common theme in Chen’s works. 

Chen Ronghui 

Chen Ronghui (China)

From the series "Freezing Land"

 “I’m obsessed with Tales of Hulan River, a novel by Xiao Hong set in the declining northeastern region. With the help of the Soviet Union, the northeast used to be the wealthiest area in China, but it has now become the country’s most recessionary land. (...) “When I finally got the chance to travel to the northeast and take a closer look, I quickly packed my large format camera and flew to the freezing land that I had always been curious about."

source : https://www.lensculture.com/articles/ronghui-chen-freezing-land