Shao Yinong and Muchen, Changting, 2002, Photograph, 122 x 168 cm, Edition of 8
The husband and wife team of Shao Yinong and Muchen in the series entitled, Assembly Halls have traveled to the 23 different provinces in Mainland China and photographed in truth and simplicity the very profound leftovers of the cultural revolution, which spanned between 1966 until 1976. The assembly halls are all different, some are old barns, some renovated into restaurants, and still others into sewing factories. The empty halls devoid of life reek with a ghost-like atmosphere of the past at once nostalgically beautiful and at the same time simmering with the historical intensity of one of China’s most turbulent periods. The halls ring with emptiness and it is in this emptiness that your mind is free to wonder and contemplate the collective memory of a nation’s gathering grounds where billions of people were indoctrinated, judged, and humiliated publicly but at the same time a place that later symbolized ceremonial gatherings such as graduations. Although the rooms are vacant there is a feeling that the crowds have either just left or are just about to arrive.
