London-based Canadian photographer Teresa Eng scrutinizes the ever-changing landscape of China, along with the fractured identity of second generation diaspora, in her series China Dream. A daughter of Mainland Chinese parents who fled to Hong Kong during the Communist revolution, Eng looks at her ancestral home through the eyes of someone who was raised halfway across the world.
With an artistic practice rooted in change – be it psychological, architectural or cultural – Eng visited China between 2013 to 2017, documenting not just metaphors of her personal identity, but also a landscape caught in a constant state of fluctuation. The resulting imagery is dreamy, poetic and abstract, tinted in muted and dusty hues just like the smog that dominates the skyline of various parts of the country, straddling mystery and transparency in equal measures. Shot entirely in analogue, Eng also celebrates the magic and mistakes of the medium. “I spent another 2 years experimenting in the color darkroom to make images that reflected the constant cycles of construction, destruction and reconstuction that I witnessed in China,” she says.
Published in 800 editions, China Dream is available in photobook form, which can be purchased here. Visit her website and Instagram to discover more of her work.
Images © Teresa Eng / with permission