Carpe Diem

When we talk about "Ba ling hou" (born after the 1980s) in China, we are talking about in fact the first generation born under the one-child policy and raised during the reform and opening up led by Deng Xiaoping after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). This generation grew up with the Internet and social networks, merging into a totally consumer society break with previous generations. Luo Yang, a photographer born in 1984, is also one of them. In 2007, at the age of 23, Luo started the series Girls, which earned him international recognition. For ten years, Luo Yang has followed more than a hundred women of her generation, recording the changes in their bodies and lives, observing and capturing their delicate transition to adulthood. It's as if the photographer is capturing their young woman's emotions holding a mirror to her own growth and evolution alongside those of his models. Now, Luo Yang is in the thirties. In the new series Youth that she launched in 2019, Luo focuses on a younger generation born in the late 1990s and early 1990s. 2000s. She continues to explore through Generation Z the mutations of Contemporary China is now globalized and has reached a new scale and tries to preserve a photographic trace of these “atypical characters” in a social context. From girls to youth, Luo Yang continues to "documenting" the post-adolescents and young adults she met in his daily life, using his works to tell "the story of the youth" across generations. It depicts an emerging culture of Chinese youth through their work that defies imposed expectations and stereotypes, showing evidence of the individuality and personality of its topics. It is a personal narrative about femininity, gender and identity that reflects the profound and ongoing changes occurring in our company. Text/ thanks to Victoria Jonathan and Bérénice Angremy Luo was selected as one of the BBC's '100 WOMEN' in 2018, shortlisted for the C/O Berlin Talent Award in 2019 and winner of the Jimei X Arles Women Photographers Award 2019.