Dandong is a border city along the Yalu River. In the 1980s, it was a shining star of China's light industry. Yet four decades later, the once-bustling silk factory districts have gradually fallen silent, seemingly unable to escape the realities of industrial transformation and population outflow. Artist Cai Zhenyu has long called Dandong home, running his own photography studio.
Over more than a decade, countless residents of Dandong stepped into his studio, standing before his lens to capture life’s significant moments. Behind the viewfinder, Cai himself observed and documented the passage of time: children growing up, parents aging. More complex still were the subtle emotional tensions—revealed through a furrowed brow or a gesture—as people faced the camera during sessions. Since 2020, Cai’s ongoing project “Relations” has focused precisely on these fluid emotions and identities unfolding before the lens, along with the human stories hidden within those gazes and poses.
While working on this project, Cai also ventured beyond his studio, turning his lens toward the banks of the Yalu River and the people and landscapes of Dandong’s streets and alleyways. The resulting work, “Northeast Ballads”, presents quintessential scenes of Northeast China: flags fluttering fiercely in the riverside wind, an elderly man lingering before a clock vendor’s stall, and a trumpet resonating in a pavilion. This borderland river embodies a striking paradox—simultaneously evoking alienation and connection—becoming a space where emotion and memory converge. Much like geographer Yi-Fu Tuan’s concept of Topophilia (the affective bond between people and place), a deep, root-like spiritual tie forms between individuals and their native land. In “Northeast Ballads”, Cai unfolds a sensory map of homeland: memories of urban life and growth merging with the river’s currents and winter’s snowflakes.
The exhibition “Encountering the River Bank” captures this very moment where space and emotion intertwine. Cai Zhenyu’s images bridge two realms: one end anchored in riverside landscapes etched with historical imprints, bearing the city’s collective memory and individual scars; the other, revealing the unspoken emotions and life stories that surface before his lens—nuances no identity label can fully contain. The emotions and narratives emerging from these portraits, alongside the riverbank’s cultural and natural vistas, form the exhibition’s core. A profound sense of place permeates the photographs, echoing Cai’s frequent remark that he hopes his work carries an "accent"—a distinct flavor born of Dandong’s soil, scenery, and human spirit, marked by understated restraint within candid simplicity, and hidden intensity beneath apparent calm.
Text｜Li Zijian