For ”Watering My Horse”, Xiaoxiao Xu followed the lives of the people along the foot of the Great Wall of China, a road trip of 25,000 kilometers. Contrary to what many people think, the Chinese wall is not a single continuous construction, but rather a collection of walls and towers built during various Chinese dynasties. Xu follows the section of the wall from the Ming dynasty and takes us to the ruins of the older parts. Despite the decline, there is a lively relationship with the wall among the local population that honor and protects the wall.
Xu tried to discover the impact of fast-growing China on this historic site. What does the wall reflect today? Which elements have disappeared and which remnants have survived? She discovered that the villages at the foot of the Great Wall are some of the last places where people still live according to old traditions, but here too, these are gradually disappearing. Her work focuses on the visual transformation of this process. From place to place she tries to catch a glimpse of the past.
Xiaoxiao Xu 徐晓晓 (born in Wenzhou, China, in 1984) moved from China to The Netherlands in 1999 when she was a teenager. In 2009 she graduated from the Photo Academy of Amsterdam, where she still lives today. After graduation she won The Photo Award and held her first solo show in FotoMuseum Antwerpen (Belgium). She was nominated for the Joop Swart Masterclass for several times and she participated in exhibitions all over the world.
More works and information: www.xiaoxiaoxu.com
