Henan is considered the birthplace of Han Chinese civilisation and served as the political center for many dynasties. Due to its large population, Henan has experienced lagging economic development during modernisation, which has made it, in the view of many people, synonymous with a less developed region. To trace how the environment, institution, and time have left marks on the place and affected residents, our new graduates Ms. Pei Yu (Sociology) and Mr. Ma Lechi (School of Architecture) visited Henan to explore the true picture and, this summer, organised a photography exhibition to showcase the outcomes with support from the“Dreaming Through Chung Chi Scheme”.

P | Pei Yu  M | Ma Lechi

Q：Why are you interested in Henan, even though you did not grow up there?

P：I met Ma in a student organisation during our first year. My parents and his mother are from Henan, which created an intangible link between us and made the exhibition possible. My parents moved out of Henan when they were young, and I grew up in Shanghai. I had only visited Henan's relatives with my parents during some Chinese New Years and have not been there since high school, when those older relatives passed away.

My father always emphasised his and my identity as Henanese, asking me to be proud of Henan by sharing some “historical facts”, such as the emperors who chose Henan cities as capitals, and important officials in our family surname, Pei, in different dynasties. However, I have never lived there, even my relatives also described me as “a little Shanghai girl”, so I resisted my father’s ideals when I was a child. Revisiting Henan is a trip to record rural images and explore my father’s memories. The exhibition was inspired after I gained a deep experience during the visit.

M：Unlike Pei’s father, my mother grew up in an urban city in Henan, then worked and got married in Xi’an after she graduated from school. I grew up in Xi’an and only maintained contact with relatives in Shaanxi, so I am not familiar with Henan.

Although I am now living in Shenzhen, I think I am still a Shaanxi and Xi’an person. However, identity is a concept with fluidity: it is something like an accent that can be changed. If you ask me why I visited Henan, I think it is still about my mother. Visiting Henan made me feel like I was returning home, even though the relationship between me and Henan is something “cryptic”.

Q：How did you plan for the photo-taking visit?

P: We split up to gather material last year. I first went to Nanyang, then met up with my father and drove to his hometown, Yanshi in Luoyang. Since one of my focuses was filming content tied to my father’s memories, my approach was to trace his upbringing — such as the mountains he played in as a kid, and the primary and middle schools he attended. Along the way, I talked to the locals to gain more personal perspectives on Henan history. Sometimes, I would spontaneously stop the car and walk to interesting places.

I visited Henan during last summer and this Chinese New Year. Both Ma and I were not familiar with Henan, so we often just wandered around, paying attention to things that caught our eye. The theme of the exhibition emerged naturally during the filming process.

M: I departed from Xi’an and headed to my mother’s hometown, Xinxiang, then to rural Huixian, and later to Zhengzhou. I noticed Zhengzhou had a lot of unfinished buildings and they became one of my filming targets. I also shot some pre-arranged subjects, like factories and churches. Later, Pei told me she had filmed a lot of ruins, so I deliberately sought out some architectural ruins to shoot as well.

Q：Can you briefly introduce the layout and related themes of the exhibition?

P：The first section of the exhibition hall is themed around “emptiness.” The general impression of the Chinese New Year involves lively scenes. However, in Henan, this is not the case. The reality is that young people no longer return, many elderly have been taken to apartments in cities or counties, and few children remain in the villages due to the lack of educational resources.

We want to express various meanings of “emptiness.” The simplest is the emptiness in landscapes or infrastructure, such as empty houses and ruins, or a billboard suddenly left blank on a long wall. Then the emptiness of order, like an unmanned courtyard with only large trees, or a village square where just two children played, prompting one to wonder: if more elderly people pass away, what will this place become? Where there should be people, only inanimate objects remain, this emptiness of loss reflects the process of migration.

M：The second part is related to “belief.” We aim to depict what local people rely on spiritually in the vast environment of “emptiness.” The photographs include a Taoist Fire God Temple, which contains not only deity statues but also a statue of Mao Zedong, aligning with scholars' studies on Mao Zedong worship in Henan. There is also a rural Catholic church, a Gothic-style red-brick building that stands out starkly against its surroundings. Yet, remarkably, visitors perform their Mass rituals without any officiant.

There is a resident who displays oddly shaped stones at his doorstep. Upon inquiry, he collected these stones from the Taihang Mountains out of personal interest. I drove there to photograph, explaining the origin of the odd stones and showcasing the interaction between people and nature. These photos are about to illustrate people's spiritual pursuits beyond mere utilitarianism.

Q：What messages do you want to express throughout the exhibition?

P: One of my messages is a feminist perspective. The elderly men of my fathers’ generation can recite the names of emperors and generals with ease, yet they struggle to remember the names of the women in our family. These women often gave up their education for the sake of their brothers and were unable to leave the village. However, their sense of loss was ignored and they were demanded “not to bring emotions”. I deliberately displayed several photos, all featuring female elders, and wrote down a story, hoping that their contributions and voices can be acknowledged and heard.

M: My previous impression of Henan was quite stereotypical, often too generalised, like “a populous province” or derogatory stereotypes about Henan people being poor or uneducated. But after visiting the area, it felt like looking through a magnifying glass and many details were discovered. From the perspective of my own discipline, if we study a building, we need to understand what it was built for, as the reason often reflects people’s beliefs and lifestyles. I believe understanding a place should be approached in the same way — starting from the material and extending to the spiritual.

Through different materials, Pei Yu and Ma Lechi try to piece together various Henan excerpts and stories captured through their lenses.