From February 12 to March 11, the inaugural tour of the 30th National Photographic Art Exhibition will make its nationwide debut at Zhenru UniPark MAX in Putuo District.
As the longest-running and most prestigious national exhibition in China's photography community, this year's edition drew over 306,000 submissions from 21,113 photographers, with only 279 works ultimately selected. This Shanghai tour will showcase a curated selection of award-winning pieces, capturing the pulse of China's social development and authentic moments of everyday life.
The exhibition features 110 works totaling 204 images, including 60 documentary entries (124 images), 44 fine art pieces (70 images), and six creative and commercial works (10 images). Eight works from Shanghai-based photographers made the final cut, two of which were created by artists from Putuo District: Hu Zhimin's documentary series “Other Land, Hometown” and Zhu Dechun's fine art single image “Struggle.”
Hu's “Other Land, Hometown” is a deeply observational documentary project completed over six years. The lens follows a group of "super builders" working across mega high-rise construction sites nationwide. Through ten pairs of images juxtaposing "workplace" and "hometown," the series weaves together themes of individual destiny and the arc of an era.
One photograph captures Yang Erbu, a Yi ethnic youth who once worked on the construction site of Zhenru UniPark MAX itself—a climbing frame operator earning 500 yuan (US$72.46) a day, framed against his distant hometown in the mountains of Liangshan, Sichuan Province. The image composes a contemporary portrait of aspiration, distance, and belonging.
The other selected work employs multiple-exposure technique to distill the decisive moment of a wheelchair fencing final at the Hangzhou Asian Para Games. The artist transforms physical contest and resilience into a tension-filled visual language. As a deaf photographer, Zhu demonstrates through his lens the boundless reach of artistic expression. "Silence is not a barrier—it is my unique perspective for observing life," he said.
