Exploring and reconstructing cultural memory through landscape photography: a case study of seaweed house in China

Abstract

The sociocultural climate in the first decade of twenty-first-century China has produced booming discussions on memory in photography. Many Chinese photographers have examined issues of individual and collective memory while others have conducted autobiographical explorations and reflected on historical sites. However, when considering the problems raised in contemporary society, such as the crisis of identity and the disappearance of traditional culture, memory would be better understood within the overarching context of cultural memory, which I challenge in this paper. This paper explores how cultural memory generated by changes in the landscape can be reconstructed through the lens of contemporary photography. Based on the case study of my Seaweed House project, I call for Jan Assmann’s memory studies agenda to uncover in detail the considerations involved in the reconstruction of a landscape community’s cultural memory.