Wan Chaofan, Yes, The River Knows - Huangpu River

Wen Chao-fan's latest photo album: "The River Knows Everything - Huangpu River".
This work is the second installment in a series following the previous work , "The River Knows Everything - Arakawa," which won the 44th Photo New Century Excellence Award in 2021, the 24th Jun Miki Award in 2023, and the 23rd Sagamihara Photography New Talent Encouragement Award.

The previous work focused on the Arakawa River, the source of water that sustains Tokyo, where the author currently lives. In this sequel, the focus shifts to the Huangpu River, a major river flowing through Shanghai, China. The Huangpu River is a river of "his own country" for Weng, but it is not his hometown, as he is originally from Beijing. Therefore, he approached this river with a fresh perspective, maintaining a different distance from it than he did with the Arakawa River.

With the "image of rivers" cultivated along the Arakawa River as a backdrop, the artist explores the relationship between cities and rivers, comparing the two rivers and highlighting their differences. It embodies an attempt to discover people's activities through the rivers flowing through the city.

A 6x17 medium format camera was used for the shooting. The wide field of view provided by the wide format captures the grandeur and complex expressions of the Huangpu River without fail.

In this series of books that re-examines the relationship between cities and people through rivers, this book marks an important milestone.