Exhibition “From Beijing to Paris” by Meng Meng

As part of the Year of the Games, the Town of Bressuire is holding an exhibition by Meng Meng, a Chinese photographer, throughout the summer at the Château de Bressuire. Entitled “Beijing in Paris”, this exhibition presents around 180 photographs that give us a glimpse of humanity.

The exhibition will be on view at the Château de Bressuire, from September 2: Saturday and Sunday from 2:30 pm to 6:30 pm.

Meng Meng

Meng Meng, a photographer of Chinese origin, who has been based in Bressuire for several years, presents her work in France for the first time. For four years, she has been managing the Instagram account of China’s largest street photography group, “Street Photography China”. This social network, like Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter, is banned in mainland China, preventing the 7,000 photographers of “Street Photography China” from using it themselves. Every day, Meng Meng chooses the best photos to post on Instagram, hoping to give the world a better understanding of China through the eyes of Chinese street photographers.

“From Beijing to Paris”

The idea for this personal exhibition began ten years ago in Meng Meng’s mind, hoping to be able to, during her lifetime, the images of Tian’anmen Square in Beijing and the Eiffel Tower in Paris taken presented to the public over the past thirty years. .
His method of photography has, over the years, extended to the streets of these two cities. Street photography is the most direct reflection of human culture: it can show the life and state of mind of city dwellers. We may not know who the people in the photos are, or their stories, but after years of photography, we can see the changes in people’s lifestyles.
The exhibition is divided into two parts and presents 150 photographs, most of which were taken in Beijing and Paris over the past ten years. Some of the Beijing photos were taken when Meng Meng returned to her hometown two years ago, in the midst of China’s strict Covid quarantine. So she was able to capture a time in Chinese life where terms like “Covid pandemic”, “zero-Covid”,
“Quarantine”, “quarantine center” and “PCR test” were ubiquitous in Chinese media and are now forbidden words in China.
The exhibition is accompanied by albums of photographs taken by famous Chinese photographers and collections of street photographs in China taken by friends of the artist.

Free entrance.

From September 1 to 22, 2024 – Saturday and Sunday – 2:30 pm to 6:30 pm – Château de Bressuire