Xu Xiaoxiao is the winner of the 2020 Jimei x Arles Women Photographers Award with "Watering my horse by a spring at the foot of the Long Wall" and won a prize of RMB30,000.
Jury member Wang Huangsheng remarked "Xu Xiaoxiao's work explores the relationship between the Great Wall and contemporary China. She sees the Great Wall as a medium for understanding China's past and present. Her distinctive pictorial language, as well as the overall presentation of her exhibitions and photobooks, leave a profound impression. This series liberates the Great Wall from the relatively fixed category of "symbols of China" and opens the narrative space for China stories that had been constricted by past discourses around the Great Wall."
Jury members:
- Gu Zheng, Professor of Fudan University, Art Director of 2020 Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival
- Lu Yinghua, Director of Beijing Inside-out Art Museum
- Liu Bolin, Contemporary Artist
- RongRong, Photographer, Co-founder of Jimei x Arles International Photo Festival, Co-founder of Three Shadows Photography Art Centre
- Wang Huangsheng, Professor of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Chief Director of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts
About her work: threeshadows.cn
December 2, 2020