Thomas Sauvin : Silvermine

Thomas Sauvin is a French photography collector and editor who lives in Beijing. Since 2006 he exclusively works as a consultant for the UK-based Archive of Modern Conflict, an independent archive and publisher, for whom he collects Chinese works, from contemporary photography to period publications to anonymous photography. Sauvin has had exhibitions of his work, and published through Archive of Modern Conflict.

China –

Silvermine is a set of five photo albums each containing 20 prints. The negatives were salvaged from a recycling plant on the edge of Beijing, where they had been sent to be filtered for their silver nitrate content. Between 2009 and 2013, Beijing-based collector Thomas Sauvin amassed, archived and edited more than half a million negatives destined for destruction.

• Nominated for Best Photobook 2013 at the 6th International Fotobook Festival, Kassel. 
• Shortlisted for the Paris Photo Aperture Foundation First Photobook Award 2013. 
• Nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2014

The Silvermine albums offer a unique photographic portrait of the Chinese capital and the lives of its inhabitants covering a period of 20 years – from 1985, when silver film came into widespread use in China, to 2005 when digital photography came to the fore. In these souvenir snapshots taken by anonymous and ordinary Chinese people, we are witnessing the birth of post-socialist China.

Each album focuses on a different theme:

Blue album: TVs and Fridges

Green album: One and Two

Orange album: Marilyn and Ronald

Pink album: Party and Transvestites

Yellow album: Leisure and Work

Silvermine, edited by Thomas Sauvin.

ISBN 978-0-9570490-1-7.

Five albums each containing 20 prints, 11 x 7.7cm.

Photography and Published June 2013 in a limited edition of 200.

Price -£150.00

Images©François Trézin

Photography

Related Posts

Ana Galan: V I V ( R ) E L A V I E – Paying Homage to Old Age Love

Spain –  This project is about love in all its forms. I have always thought that arriving to a certain age, …

Marta Berens: “Dream Chapter” – Magical Illusion of a Photographer’s Reality

Poland –  Dream chapter is a part of my “Fairytale” story. “It is out of reality that the most peculiar …

Munem Wasif : ‘The notion of educating others is quite boring’

Bangladesh – Through rediscovering his own culture, Munem Wasif aims to raise awareness around the world with compelling images of …

The PhotoBookMuseum by Schaden Foundation

Germany –    The PhotoBookMuseum (The_PBM) pays tribute to the central form of expression in photography: the photobook. To introduce …

Ayako Mogi: Travelling Tree

Japan – “Travelling Tree” collects photos taken by Photography feature – Ayako Mogi during her peregrinations throughout Europe and Japan …

Ghosts of Genocide : Palash Krishna Mehrotra on Ziyah Gafic

Bosnia : Book Review : Quest For Identity By Palash Krishna Mehrotra By themselves, these are ordinary objects. These are objects that …

Michelle Frankfurter Destino

Douglas Stockdale on Michelle Frankfurter “Destino”

USA –  This is my first review of the photobook series published by FotoEvidence, a non-profit organization that focuses on …

David Favrod: GAIJIN

Japan –  GAIJIN – Japanese word meaning the foreigner. My name is David Takashi Favrod. I was born on the …

Jen Juul Gomma Books

Celebrating Black and White Photography with Gomma Books

MONO Trilogy is about celebrating that beautiful and timeless art medium that is black & white photography. It represents an …