Gu Zheng 2011-06-09
Shanghai
“I was working in the Shanghai suburb of Songjiang. [Mao’s wife] Jiang Qing had given orders that China must develop its own camera industry. She had chosen Songjiang as the site for a large factory. It would become the Far East’s premiere producer of cameras. There were 5,000 factory workers, but, now, Chinese camera production is already non-existent. It was destroyed by foreign competition. At the time, we were very big and the difference between our cameras and foreign imports was relatively small. We also still hoped that we could improve Chinese-made cameras. Now it is no longer possible.”
Biography:
Gu Zheng (b. 1959, Shanghai) is a photographer and scholar of photography and visual communication.
In late 1970s and early 1980s, Gu Zheng first studied and then taught in the technical school of the Shanghai Camera Factory. In 1986, Gu and his friends formed the photography group “Beihemeng” (Alliance of the Northern River). In the same year, the group organized an exhibition titled “Seekers – Black and White Photography Exhibition” in both Beijing and Shanghai.
From 1991 to 1993, Gu studied in the Graduate School of Intercultural Studies, Kobe University, Japan, and in 1998 he graduated from Osaka Prefecture University with a Ph.D. degree in comparative culture.
Gu Zheng is currently professor of Journalism School, vice director of Research Center for Visual Culture and researcher for the Centre of Information and Communication at Fudan University. His research areas include history, theories and practices of photography and visual communications.
