“In Southeast China many of the young have left for the cities leaving the old and the very young at home in the villages and terraced fields. They return with new prosperity and new ideas, changing forever an ancient and tenacious way of life….While the photographer laments the disappearance of the beautiful old villages and old customs, the harshness of the old way of life is giving way to a new freedom and the intrusions—finally—of modernity.”
While on my way to FotoFest in Houston, I was honored to be given a tour of Charlotte Temple’s exhibition at The Museum of East Texas by the Director, J.P. McDonald, while it was being hung. Temple has been photographing rural China and it’s minority areas for over thirty years. She’s traveled to many of the “remote areas of the country documenting the enduring beauty of the land and it’s people, their dignity and resilience.” The exhibition of over one hundred images, includes the regions ancient terraced landscapes and portraits of the work-hardened villagers, along with the unique handmade textiles made in that particular region given to Temple by the families who opened their village home to her.
EXHIBITION
South of the Clouds: Journeys Through Southeast China
Photographs by Charlotte Temple
From April 3 to May, 22, 2016
Artist Talk : April 9, 2016, 7-9pm
The Museum of East Texas
503 North Second Street
Lufkin, Texas, 75901
United States
http://www.charlotte-temple.com
http://ctemplephotos.visura.co
