ChengLong Zhang

My name is Zhang Chenglong, and I am a filmmaker and photographer. I was born in Liaoyang, a northeastern industrial city in China, in 1987. I lived there for 16 years before moving to Beijing to live and work.

In high school, I attended an art high school where I studied drama performance for three years, my first exposure to the arts. During that time, I was introduced to Shakespearean and Chinese theater, as well as Stanislavski and Brecht’s theater theories. These learning experiences had a profound impact on my later photography work.

I graduated from the Photography and Videography program at the Communication University of China, and also majored in Film Directing. After graduating from university, I worked as an independent filmmaker to create my own films. In 2017, I started my first photography project, “Burning North,” which was inspired by the aesthetics of direct cinema and cinéma vérité of the 20th century. found a balance between “waiting for events to happen” and “actively intervening,” capturing the dramatic moments of people’s daily lives in an everyday urban setting through documentary snapshots, and telling the story of city life through my personal visual narrative. I think the path to truth is achieved through fiction.