About the Artist

 

Luo Dan was born in 1968 and currently lives and works in Chengdu, Sichuan.

 

Luo Dan graduated from Sichuan Fine Art Institutes in 1992. From 1997 to 2007, he was a newspaper photographer. In 2006, he created 318 National Highways, and in 2008, he shot North, South. Simple Songs he took in 2010.

 

 


 

 

ABOUT THE work

 

 

On the door to the church in Lameijia Village is wri en the words, “Rejoicing in hope; pa ent in tribula on; con nuing instant in prayer” (Romans 12:12). This is a guiding principle for the lives of Chris ans living in Fugong County, Nujiang, Yunnan. Chris ans make up 70% of the popula on of this county.

 

The majority of these Chris ans are average farmers whose land is located on the steep slopes of Biluoxue Mountain and Gaoligong Mountain which ank the Nu River. They plant many kinds of corn and rice year round. They stop work at sunset, and their harvest is meager.

 

These destitute farmers who never forget to be thankful; every day they confess and pray, allowing the spirit of Christ to enter their lives in their sowing, harvesting, joys, and hardships, from birth to death. They face their difficult lives with calm and poise, as if a sudden thunderstorm could not change their steps in the slightest. Their inner peace and calm comes from belief and from the freedom of having entrusted themselves to God.

 

What we have, they do not, and what they have is already distant from us. When seeing these images, composed of clusters of silver parcles on a glass plate, I often think of its similarity to a mirror. I hope that what this mirror refects is my future. A friend saw these photographs and asked me, “When was this picture taken? One hundred years ago?” I said, “No. These are one hundred years in the future.”