With Wave Shun Zhai continues his psychogeographic investigation of the city of Qingdao. Situated on a peninsula and surrounded by the sea on three sides, Qingdao, the hometown of the young Chinese photographer, is a city where the presence of the sea is constant and significant, a structural element of the landscape whose influence accompanies and reconfigures the lives of the inhabitants and their narratives.

Carefully observing the waves crashing on the coast, Shun Zhai found himself immersed in deep reflections on the changing nature of life itself. The waves of the sea, at times calm and placid, at others violent and raging—yet always in motion—are a reflection of the incessant flow of events in his existence and in the lives of all those who inhabit the town along the coast. Just as the comings and goings of the waves follow one after the other, so do the generations follow one another in their inevitable succession, a coming and going that brings with it stories, traditions and changes, little big events that outline the passing of time.

In an era of rapid development such as that which characterises present-day China, Shun Zhai watches the waves of time carry away not only the present, but also the past, dragging with them not only the fine sands of the beaches, but also the memories engraved in the rocks of the coral reefs and in people’s hearts.

By organising and concretising around this evocative metaphor of the wave the principle of a breath and a rhythm, Shun Zhai produces a vivid generational portrait, the tale of a summer and a city that seem suspended in history and time.

Photograph after photograph, Shun Zhai takes us with him through a poignant and intimate universe. The places, the circumstances, the manifold slightest events, the small hierophanies are gathered by the sensitive and intelligent gaze of an image collector, a young author whose eye does not fail in reading the complexity of the world and its postures. Wave is not only an attempt to capture the inextricable and subtle connection between human existence and the perpetual movement of the sea, but also to preserve and share the beauty and complexity of Qingdao and its people.