Lu Xianyi

Black Miaos

LU Xianyi has been photographing for ten years the Black Miaos of Basha, in southeast Guizhou. Close to ethnology, his refined black and white portraits have been shown at Arles International Photography Festival in 2003.

The skin textures, facial expressions and hands seem to tell everything about this people and its ancestral warrior’s traditions. The strikingly original aesthetics, along with the nakedness and poses stricken by the members of this tribe, suggest a kind of photographic ritual, faraway from folkloric pictures.

Black Miaos-01, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15

Black Miaos-02, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15

Black Miaos-03, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15

Black Miaos-04, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15

Black Miaos-05, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15

Black Miaos-06, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15

Black Miaos-07, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15

Black Miaos-08, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15

Black Miaos-09, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15

Black Miaos-10, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15

Black Miaos-11, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15

Black Miaos-12, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15

Black Miaos-13, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15

Black Miaos-14, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15

Black Miaos-15, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15

Black Miaos-16, 1998

C-Print Size A:80x100cm Edition:10  Size B:56x70cm Edition:15