Vera Yijun Zhou

Established in 2016, Imageless is an award-winning independent photobook publisher based in Shanghai, China. Through producing high-quality, limited-edition photobooks, our primary goal is to increase the representation of East-Asian photographers in the global photography community. While focusing predominantly on Chinese photography, we aim to work with some of East Asia’s most promising and prominent contemporary photographers to produce powerful work that blends unique visual languages with culturally nuanced storytelling. Our ethos of uncovering new talent and helping to develop the careers of up-and-coming photographers is at the core of the annual Imageless Dummy Photobook Award (IDPA) and Imageless Emerging Photographer Grant. As of January 2022, Imageless has published 24 photobooks and held exhibitions, educational events, and international art exchanges all over China.In 2019, 'The Eighth Day' by artist Gao Shan won The Aperture Foundation's 'First Photobook Award' at Paris Photo.

This project explores the story of 3 women with a word that reso- nates in common; absence. This symbiosis of stories is united by forced disappearance, migration, and family violence, which breaks ties and leaves gaps. “Seeing the face of fear and approaching its source, crossing the line, even if it is confusing my place there, interpreting and feeling the other, feeds my own understanding. I am afraid, but an invisible touch pushes me and calls me to be there, gradually the shadows of my memory settle in my warmest days to tell me of the fears I live but ignore, that visit me dai- ly with their slow and infinite flashes. The ghosts that somehow populate all of us who share living in a place where going for a walk is a danger and being at home too, because anyone can come and turn off our life, in that space reality exceeds us and the only possible reme- dy is denial. To feel other lives, it is spectral and it is a gift”.

In the course of the construction of this book, I was immersed in a journey through my life as a child and at the same time through my father’s life, where similarities and radical ruptures appear. Starting from a repressed childhood that could at a given moment be the cause of my decisions, such as having chosen such a cruel medical speciality as Trau- matology, where I was almost always in contact with blood and radical procedures such as amputations. Anecdotes emerged, both from my childhood and from my practice as a medical specialist, which led me to search for archive images. In addition, throughout the photobook are interwo- ven solarigraphs, an important part of a stage of my work, where for eighteen months I placed 32 pinhole cameras on the roofs of houses in the city of Oaxaca, which recorded both the path of the sun and the great earthquake of 2017 that destroyed a large part of the state. These abstract im- ages of intense colours reflect a profoundly difficult stage of my life, after leaving medicine, where I plunged into the tunnels of a strong depression and anxiety. In the story I draw an analogy between the phantom limb syn- drome in which a patient, after having been amputated, continues to feel the now non-existent limb with the linger- ing presence of the father long after he has passed away. Separation, mutilation, wounds, ruptures, amputations, words that are the common thread of the photobook, both in the story and in its physical structure.

UN-IDENTIFIED is a series about the belief in alien species and how people construct their own world and perceptions. The series is based on a personal experience I had at the age of 10 that triggered my passion for the subject and curiosity to understand the psychology behind it. The idea for the series came after visiting the International UFO Congress in Phoe- nix. I was impressed by the multitude of people attracted to this event and the secrecy surrounding the subject. I felt like I was entering a new universe, a subculture in which space- ships, contacts with creatures from other dimensions, space travel and abductions are part of the reality of believers, even if they are viewed as something strange and skeptical by outsiders. Carl Jung said that modern man projects his inner state into the sky. In a cybernetic culture, full of uncertainties, catastrophes and fears of the unknown, people are looking for a way to redefine themselves and feel safe in a group of like-minded people. By giving the unexplained a divine and supernatu- ral character, they feel both hopeful and chosen to be part of a sacred mission to spread the truth.

Representation through images is central to the process of generating meaning for the culturally situated notion of failure. I was born in the Year of the Pig and in many cultures, pigs are seen as dirty and often the target of dietary restric- tions. They are also used in derogatory vernacular, for ex- ample, Facebook Community Standards reflect on this cul- tural norm that declares pigs as intellectually or physically inferior animals. Calling someone “a pig” on the platform is a breach of its user code and a form of online bullying. Pig, is a mascot of failures. As a child, I was made fun of by the other children and I was left feeling an embodiment of a failed image as a “pig”. I created a dehumanized image-based world made of screens and billboards in the game engine Unity 3D, a world made of pig and pork images. I ask questions like: “How does a pig look at screens in a pig’s world?” Or “Would pigs be offended by pork images on social media?” The virtual world is displayed as an installation of videos on multiple screens representing different multi-dimensions of piling man-made products. Later abandoned, the man-made products remain pieces of evidence tracing human existence. The large number of images we create, view, and consume every day, is also evidence of the database that we have been here.

Harmony gives rise to, and is powered by, a process of ‘domestication’, in which everyone is part of something else. Everyone takes part in this system of ‘consensus’ bridging feelings of dominance and of be- ing dominated, with notions of consumption and being consumed. The ones among us with a proclivity and love for dreams and values seem doomed to find them crushed by reality; expectations twisting into depression and darkening into a feeling of decadence. But the helpless vortex in which those with dreams and values find themselves, operates eternally in the service of conformity: they are but a bond to the system itself. I was born in the Year of the Pig. Pig, is a mascot of failures. As a child, I was made fun of by the other children and I was left feeling an embodiment of a failed image as a “pig”. It took me a very long time to accept that I was born “a pig”. Growing up, I started to realize that accepting this fact, was the first step to embodying my failures. From being told to be a good student, and enroll in a good university. The authorities of disciplines, neoliberalism, and mass media, create abstract but binary standards that I was defined by. and as a result, they defined my failure and success. After working as an image creator to create symbols of consumption in the creative industry. Eventually, I turned into a consumer of the symbols I created which triggered my biggest failure to this moment. The increased daily usage of screen-based media and the algorithms behind it, construct an impenetrable barrier that reassociates, reorganizes, and re-determines reality. I look at the powerlessness and failure in identifying the Other from my own perspective and try to under- stand how the Other is constructed.

Harmony gives rise to, and is powered by, a process of ‘domestication’, in which everyone is part of something else. Everyone takes part in this system of ‘consensus’ bridging feelings of dominance and of be- ing dominated, with notions of consumption and being consumed. The ones among us with a proclivity and love for dreams and values seem doomed to find them crushed by reality; expectations twisting into depression and darkening into a feeling of decadence. But the helpless vortex in which those with dreams and values find themselves, operates eternally in the service of conformity: they are but a bond to the system itself. I was born in the Year of the Pig. Pig, is a mascot of failures. As a child, I was made fun of by the other children and I was left feeling an embodiment of a failed image as a “pig”. It took me a very long time to accept that I was born “a pig”. Growing up, I started to realize that accepting this fact, was the first step to embodying my failures. From being told to be a good student, and enroll in a good university. The authorities of disciplines, neoliberalism, and mass media, create abstract but binary standards that I was defined by. and as a result, they defined my failure and success. After working as an image creator to create symbols of consumption in the creative industry. Eventually, I turned into a consumer of the symbols I created which triggered my biggest failure to this moment. The increased daily usage of screen-based media and the algorithms behind it, construct an impenetrable barrier that reassociates, reorganizes, and re-determines reality. I look at the powerlessness and failure in identifying the Other from my own perspective and try to under- stand how the Other is constructed.

Harmony gives rise to, and is powered by, a process of ‘domestication’, in which everyone is part of something else. Everyone takes part in this system of ‘consensus’ bridging feelings of dominance and of be- ing dominated, with notions of consumption and being consumed. The ones among us with a proclivity and love for dreams and values seem doomed to find them crushed by reality; expectations twisting into depression and darkening into a feeling of decadence. But the helpless vortex in which those with dreams and values find themselves, operates eternally in the service of conformity: they are but a bond to the system itself. I was born in the Year of the Pig. Pig, is a mascot of failures. As a child, I was made fun of by the other children and I was left feeling an embodiment of a failed image as a “pig”. It took me a very long time to accept that I was born “a pig”. Growing up, I started to realize that accepting this fact, was the first step to embodying my failures. From being told to be a good student, and enroll in a good university. The authorities of disciplines, neoliberalism, and mass media, create abstract but binary standards that I was defined by. and as a result, they defined my failure and success. After working as an image creator to create symbols of consumption in the creative industry. Eventually, I turned into a consumer of the symbols I created which triggered my biggest failure to this moment. The increased daily usage of screen-based media and the algorithms behind it, construct an impenetrable barrier that reassociates, reorganizes, and re-determines reality. I look at the powerlessness and failure in identifying the Other from my own perspective and try to under- stand how the Other is constructed.

Harmony gives rise to, and is powered by, a process of ‘domestication’, in which everyone is part of something else. Everyone takes part in this system of ‘consensus’ bridging feelings of dominance and of be- ing dominated, with notions of consumption and being consumed. The ones among us with a proclivity and love for dreams and values seem doomed to find them crushed by reality; expectations twisting into depression and darkening into a feeling of decadence. But the helpless vortex in which those with dreams and values find themselves, operates eternally in the service of conformity: they are but a bond to the system itself. I was born in the Year of the Pig. Pig, is a mascot of failures. As a child, I was made fun of by the other children and I was left feeling an embodiment of a failed image as a “pig”. It took me a very long time to accept that I was born “a pig”. Growing up, I started to realize that accepting this fact, was the first step to embodying my failures. From being told to be a good student, and enroll in a good university. The authorities of disciplines, neoliberalism, and mass media, create abstract but binary standards that I was defined by. and as a result, they defined my failure and success. After working as an image creator to create symbols of consumption in the creative industry. Eventually, I turned into a consumer of the symbols I created which triggered my biggest failure to this moment. The increased daily usage of screen-based media and the algorithms behind it, construct an impenetrable barrier that reassociates, reorganizes, and re-determines reality. I look at the powerlessness and failure in identifying the Other from my own perspective and try to under- stand how the Other is constructed.

Harmony gives rise to, and is powered by, a process of ‘domestication’, in which everyone is part of something else. Everyone takes part in this system of ‘consensus’ bridging feelings of dominance and of be- ing dominated, with notions of consumption and being consumed. The ones among us with a proclivity and love for dreams and values seem doomed to find them crushed by reality; expectations twisting into depression and darkening into a feeling of decadence. But the helpless vortex in which those with dreams and values find themselves, operates eternally in the service of conformity: they are but a bond to the system itself. I was born in the Year of the Pig. Pig, is a mascot of failures. As a child, I was made fun of by the other children and I was left feeling an embodiment of a failed image as a “pig”. It took me a very long time to accept that I was born “a pig”. Growing up, I started to realize that accepting this fact, was the first step to embodying my failures. From being told to be a good student, and enroll in a good university. The authorities of disciplines, neoliberalism, and mass media, create abstract but binary standards that I was defined by. and as a result, they defined my failure and success. After working as an image creator to create symbols of consumption in the creative industry. Eventually, I turned into a consumer of the symbols I created which triggered my biggest failure to this moment. The increased daily usage of screen-based media and the algorithms behind it, construct an impenetrable barrier that reassociates, reorganizes, and re-determines reality. I look at the powerlessness and failure in identifying the Other from my own perspective and try to under- stand how the Other is constructed.

Representation through images is central to the process of generating meaning for the culturally situated notion of failure. I was born in the Year of the Pig and in many cultures, pigs are seen as dirty and often the target of dietary restrictions. They are also used in derogatory vernacular, for example, Facebook Community Standards reflect on this cultural norm that declares pigs as intellectually or physically inferior animals. Calling someone “a pig” on the platform is a breach of its user code and a form of online bullying. Pig, is a mascot of failures. As a child, I was made fun of by the other children and I was left feeling an embodiment of a failed image as a “pig”.

Gao Shan’s award-winning photobook The Eighth Day takes its name from the photographer’s personal history – on the eighth day after his birth, Shan was adopted. While grow- ing up, Shan’s relationship with his adoptive mother was often indifferent and aloof. It wasn’t until he turned his cam- era on his mother that he started to understand the unique nuances of her lived experience. In the Eighth Day, Gao Shan uses his camera not as a tool for ob- servation but as an instrument to break open and dissect their relationship, ultimately bringing them closer together. The result is an intimate, touching, and poignant photo- graphic portrayal of what it means to see and be seen for the first time. The Eighth Day was the winner of the 2019 Aperture First Photobook Award.

On Amiko Li’s series “Maiden Voyage,” photographer Tim Davis writes: “[It] is a probe, sent to the limits of photographic con- nectedness.” The images, diary-like in nature, together make an idiosyncratic view of the human experience. “Li draws together images that are strummed on the harp of one sharp- eared young romantic artist, but whose meaning together builds odd harmonic overtones as images pile up. This work is the diary of a vision of the world, not of a person.” Maiden Voyage won PDN The Curator’s Award and Center Project Launch Award, it was nominated MACK First Book Award, and shortlisted at Istanbul PhotoBoo Festival and Belfast Photo Festival.

In this new book, we selected 8 young and talented Chinese pho- tographers’ work. They are Deng Yun, Chen Zhuo, Tao Siqi, Yang Yanyuan, Xing Lei, Ning Kai&Sabrina Scarpa, Zhang Jian, Liu Yuan.

In this issue, we chose two photographers who lived in two cities - Tokyo and Shanghai. They were both made images in urban city, however, in a totally different way. We edited their images , present them together based on their unique individual experiences.

Fade is about a trip with my family in Mauritius in 2014. When we were traveling in Mauritius, I became friends with a fam- ily next to my hotel. Before leaving, I promised that they would keep in touch with them by E-mail and send them mosquito pats from China as a gift (as they could not afford one), and I would return to visit them again. After returning home, when I developed the film, I found that the first time I tried to use the flash, I got the shutter and flash connected at the wrong speed, and every photo using the flash only half of the light entered. During many years, I never returned to Mauritius and never sent an E-email to them. Not even the electric mosquito pats. I learned how to use the camera and flash properly, as well as how to take perfectly exposed photos. I no longer use film cameras, so every photo can be displayed on the LED screen, there are no more irreparable mistakes. Once my hard disk broke down. When I opened the scanned file again after recovering the data, many files were lost and many files appeared weird cracks on them. Memory fades, film fades, and even digitally stored files fade, so does kindness.

Meritocracy has always been a passion narrative. In order to achieve better results, even gamers take stimulants. Enter- tainment has become a derivative, with a grotesque effect, grows brutally and chaotically under the pressure of so- ciety. Suffering and entertainment are ultimately intimate. The clown’s smile looked strikingly similar to the painful twisted expression of the sufferer. In Chinese, “sesame and mung bean” refers to trivial matters. These snapshots are spontaneous derivative entertain- ments of some Chinese folks. These pervasive and magi- cal realistic games to some extent maintain the stability of social structure, they are not carefree indulgences, nor are they the opposite of the burden of life.

Travel is very useful and it exercises the imagination. All the rest is disappointment and fatigue. Our own journey is entirely imaginary. That is its strength. It goes from life to death. People, animals, cities, things, all are imagined. It’s a nov- el, simply a fictitious narrative. Journey to the End of the Night. Louis-Ferdinand Céline The rotation of hometown and outland is recognition of the sense of belonging. I take this purposeless short-term migration as a common status of my life, putting myself, and my own observations and thoughts into the narrative of travel. I try to create stories with every insignificant experience. These stories are about the difference of landscapes of long-dis- tance regional span and the convergence of phenomena under the trend of globalization, as well as the tininess and incapability of individuals. Travel is connected to my- self, to my weakness, dreams and illusions. Travel and its stories are imagined, they are just a fragile bubble.

After resigned from the job, 214 continued to shot for the Summer Time project. In Summer Time II, 214 created with much more joy and humor in his images. He also cap- tured lots of living creatures such as bugs, snake and birds. In these unpredictable encounter, he conducts the details of nature into his unique works.

The newest issue of LEAP is a special review of this decade. It traces back the years from 2010 to 2018, with a selection of some of the best reviews published in the 47 issues of the magazine since its inception in the beginning of the decade. Not only a testament to the bilingual art maga- zine’s rich history, it’s a reflection of the contemporary art scene in China in this highly influential and ever-acceler- ating decade. Having gone through the shifting winds in the contemporary art world and the publishing business in China in the past nine years, LEAP has always been— and still is, relentlessly—at the forefront of serious and engaged art criticism in the Sinosphere and beyond. The printed matter in your hands is the proof of that, as well as a reaffirmation of our commitment. Drawn from the past 47 issues of the magazine, this special anthology of LEAP includes cover stories, and a chronicle of the key exhibi- tions and their reviews in the Chinese scene from 2010 to 2018. History in Progress: A Chinese Contemporary Scene since 2010 is not only a useful archive for studying and analyzing Chinese contemporary art of this period, it also aims to paint a vivid portrait of this era.

This issue is about the “island” Photographer Aspirin traveled Taiwan with his family and friends about two weeks. Shot with 35mm black and white film. Photographer Chen Yinhe got the working holiday visa and went to the New Zealand. Photographed with medium format camera in color. Each of their work we made a single book, and combine these two books with a hard cover.