Video: "Sculptors' Village": reportage photo by Chiara Goia
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Italian photographer Chiara Goia visited a Chinese artisan village that lives off the production of copies of famous antique sculptures.
Dong Cheng is a small village in China, where virtually all commercial activities of the population are centered around the manufacture of imitations of world famous classical sculptures. Italian photographer Chiara Goia shot a series of photographs in it, documenting the life of the hard-working, highly specialized and somewhat extravagant community that inhabits the “village of sculptors”.
Local craftsmen, gray with a thick layer of cement dust, generously covering everything around, are depicted at work, in the midst of a long working day, cutting, drilling, sawing, grinding various fragments of Michelangelo's copy of David, or putting the final polish on the finished replica of Venus de Milo.
Goya's photographs draw attention to the strange contrasts between the everyday life of a craft village and the masterpieces of ancient art that have been elevated to the rank of world heritage. For example, the scene with David proudly standing in front of a traditional Chinese house, near a fountain decorated with a sculptural composition depicting bamboo shoots, and a parked old motorcycle looks rather surreal.
Rural artisans make nearly perfect copies of the original sculptures, but their role as creators is virtually nullified by the secondary nature of the sculptures they produce. Through photography, Chiara Goya encourages viewers to think about where the line between art and craft, imitation and counterfeiting lies, asking, “Can we call these people artists? Aren't they, living sculptors who do complex and delicate work, re-create these works?"
And French artist Prune Nourry turned to Chinese artisans for help with the Terracotta Daughters project, dedicated to the millions of girls who were never born because of gender discrimination.
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