Since Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (1485), a masterpiece that has fascinated generations of artists for its beauty and sexual symbols, various photographers from around the world have taken inspiration from the piece, consciously or unconsciously, associating the female body with the sea, like a subliminal quest to find the “origin of the world,” the origin of life in all its simplicity. The image that comes immediately to mind is that of a teenager in a swimsuit shot by the Dutch artist Rineke Dijkstra. Hence the surprise at discovering, at the 2014 Pingyao Photography Festival, these astonishing photographs by Wu Zhengzhong, a seasoned documentary photographer from Qingdao, a city destroyed by the Germans, who occupied it from 1898 to 1922, and known worldwide thanks to its eponymous brand of beer.
On a summer day in 2009, Wu encountered at a Qingdao seaside resort a handful of masked bathers. Finding it curious, he took a picture. Returning to the same spot in 2012, he noticed that the number of masked divers had not only increased, but now they were wearing full-body suits. One of his friends, who heads a team of winter divers, explained to him the pioneer of these masks was one Madame Yuan Xueying, who worked in the textile industry. The original idea behind the mask was to cover the hair while swimming—this was before the Spiderman came out—and she transformed the bonnet into a mask. Her friends ended up liking the masks and took to wearing them. Wu Zhengzhong asked the swimmers why they wore the masks. Reasons included protection from the sun, sand fleas, jellyfish and insects born from pollution. At nearby factories, factories dump polluted water directly into the ocean, so the sea surrounding Qingdao is especially dirty.
Read the full article on the French version of L’Oeil de la Photographie.
