A found image from Thomas Sauvin’s Beijing Silvermine collection
Saved from destruction, at the hands of recyclers interested only reclaiming silver from the negatives, Sauvin’s collection preserves a largely-overlooked period in China’s history.
The archive reveals the fascinating rise of consumer culture in China.. The introduction of affordable photographic film to China in the 1980s allowed everyday people to document their lives. As digital photography replaced analogue the negatives and the memories contained within them were discarded as worthless or unusable.
