Re: Girl Swee Chio
A Chinese artist spent nearly a year travelling around the country in a mobile studio in order to photograph thousands of ordinary people, and post them on a social network.
Visiting 35 cities in 25 provinces, photographer Maleonn took 1,600 portraits of people dressed in outrageous fancy dress, surrounded by strange props of all shapes and sizes, before posting the snaps on the Chinese version of Twitter.
Shanghai-based Maleonn spent seven months preparing for the ten-month project, including painting the sets and backgrounds, preparing costumes, producing the props, purchasing a truck and arranging location.
The images were posted on his Weibo account - China's own Twitter - and he was overwhelmed by the response.
The project became so popular that he had to establish a set of guidelines, such as a minimum of eight people per city, who would provide him and his team with food, somewhere to stay and space to work.
The idea of the mobile studio came after the artist lost his Shanghai studio, growing weary with the arts scene in the city.
‘I became tired of contemporary art, the system, dealing with critics and curators behind closed doors. I wanted to do something with ordinary people,’ Maleonn says.
Having completed his travels around China, Maleonn spoke of the possibility of taking the mobile studio project to Britain, adding: ‘I have friends in Swansea.’
