Rekindling Familial Memories with Walks through the Qinling Mountains
22 June 2020 - Written by PhMuseum
Chinese photographer Pan Wang has spent three years photographing the people and landscapes of the Qinling Mountains as a means to resurfacing suppressed childhood memories of his late father.
To me, the great Qinling in China is more than a mountain range, it’s the embodiment of a father. In fact, Daqinling is referred to as ‘father mountain’. When I was a child I looked at the boundless mountains and asked the elders to explain where they began and ended, but there was never an answer.
My father died when I was five, but I remember him taking me to Qinling on his bicycle to visit relatives and friends. Images of this constantly flash in my heart. 30 years later after he died, I became a father too, and at the same age as him, I began to photograph the Qinling, eventually spending three years walking the length of the range. During my journey, I gradually picked up the childhood memories that had dissipated.
Words and Pictures by Pan Wang.
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Pan Wang lives and works in Beijing, China. He is engaged in commissioned photography and personal projects. His personal works include “Broken memory. Changing hometown” and “like a father like a mountain”. Find him on PHmuseum and Instagram.
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This feature is part of Story of the Week, a selection of relevant projects from our community handpicked by the PHmuseum curators.