ADOU 阿斗 | ADOU & SAMALADA 《阿斗&萨马拉达》

Adou & Samalada
Photographs by Adou 阿斗
Published by M97 Gallery
Size: 26.5 x 21.5 cm Year: 2013Hardcover 144 pages
In his first major body of photographs "Salamada" Adou focused on the wild and remote Yi people of faraway Liangshan, Sichuan. The Yi people became the primal manifestation of his camera lens and artistry, though Adou would say it has little to do with him, he is just the conduit. After numerous visits he once joked he could close his eyes and make pictures it was so full of life, spirit. The individuals he depicts and their existence are far more profound than his photographs and film could ever convey, he might say, but convey they do. It is partly this sensitivity of the artist towards existence and the human condition that gives Adou's photographs their particular gravity, their worldly weight of time and experience and in the end their resonance with the viewer whether the subject be himself or the Yi people of Samalada.