The Third Compass: Xie Hongdong

“Several times a year, I go back to my hometown to see, feel, and taste it again. I call it a blood connection; it is my home. Every time I go, I see new things with new eyes—the land and skies, streams and weather, are always the same and always different, full of a mystery that leads me to new and uncharted worlds.” — Xie Hongdong

ENGAGE Projects is excited to announce our upcoming solo exhibition The Third Compass by photographer Xie Hongdong. Based in Beijing, Hongdong draws on his upbringing in Gansu Province of northwest China, a diverse landscape of grassland, desert, mountain range, and river, to make his photographs that abstract elements of the natural world. Both obscure and familiar in their physicality, Hongdong’s works touch on the subconscious with their intuitive

link between the external environment and internal psyche. The artist adheres to a strict principle of no post-photo manipulation to preserve the translation from life to frame, perfecting this self-taught approach to photography since 2012.

Reinvigorating imagery of the everyday, Hongdong’s luminous photographs of micro landscapes have a strong undercurrent that speaks of global anthropogenic issues. He says, “I am interested in the minute things in nature that tell us about the changes in the larger world.” While climate change often happens on a scale incomprehensible to humans, Hongdong chooses to zero in on one subject at a time, dissociating matter such as plants, water, ice, smoke, and spider webs from their natural environments and inspiring a personal connection between larger environmental issues and the individual.

Xie Hongdong has shown work in exhibitions including Intentional Attention at ENGAGE Projects in Chicago, Illinois (2021); A Composite Leviathan at Bridge Projects in Los Angeles (2020); Inside the Reed and Ice Crystal—Stanley Fung and Xie Hong Dong Exhibition at Artrue in Taipei, Taiwan (2018); and Dust-Light at Clerkenwell Space in Beijing, China (2016) among others.

For further information, please contact info@engage-projects.com

Image: The Flaming 01, 2022, archival pigment print, 31 1/2 x 47 1/4 in 80 x 120 cm