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Home » News » Li Zhensheng photo exhibit, lecture spotlight China during revolution

Courtesy Li Zhensheng (Contact Press Images)

One of Li Zhensheng’s photos from Aug. 25, 1966, shows the staff of the Heilongjiang Daily newspaper criticizing Luo Zicheng, the leader of the committee work group of the Provincial Communist Party. His dunce cap announces his crimes.

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Through Oct. 9, the lobby of Ernie Pyle Hall is the site of an exhibit of the work documenting China’s Cultural Revolution, a period of modern history that has been largely hidden from the public eye both within China and abroad.

The exhibit pieces are the work of Li Zhensheng who, while working as a party-approved photographer for the Heilongjiang Daily, managed, at great personal risk, to hide and preserve more than 30,000 negatives during the 10-year period of the revolution (roughly 1966-76). This body of work is the only known existing photographic documentation of the Cultural Revolution.

Li visits Oct. 6 for a lecture at 7:30 p.m. in the Ernie Pyle auditorium with a reception following in the lounge. Both the lecture and exhibit are free and open to all. Journalism doctoral student Li Shi will be the translator for Li Zhensheng while he is at IU.

This event is sponsored by the East Asian Studies Center and the School of Journalism, with additional funding provided by the Office of the Vice President for International Affairs; the Robert and Avis Burke Lecture Series, Department of the History of Art; and the Department of Communication and Culture.

For more information, view Li’s work on the Web.

For more info about the exhibit, visit the East Asian Studies Center Web site.

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