Closing Ceremony #1
‘It’s a closing ceremony when pressing the shutter for creation,’ Closing Ceremony’s makers say of the idea behind its name. The magazine, one of a steady stream of new titles from China, is both a celebration of traditional photography and a platform for new photographers. Its debut issue looks at the classic subject of street photography, publishing works by fourteen different contributors, alongside interviews and an essay written by author and visual researcher Joel Vacheron.
The magazine opens with an index of the contributing photographers, and a short bio on each one (above). They are a far-reaching group, hailing from Mexico, Japan, Korea, and Brooklyn, among other places, and have all arrived at Closing Ceremony at varying stages in their careers. The works in the magazine are all previously unpublished.
The magazine has a wonderful glossy finish and the works are curated beautifully on the page. Each photographer is given several pages devoted to their work, which almost serve as individual zines, and include thoughtful interviews that run alongside the images. Joel Vacheron’s essay, ‘Street Photography and Metaphorical Cities’ (above), looks at how street photography has changed since Eugene Atget wandered around Paris taking pictures in the 1880s. The essay marks a shift in Closing Ceremony’s subject, as we are taken into the contributors’ exhibition spaces, and several pages devoted to Instagram, which has become such an integral platform for photographers.
Closing Ceremony is an exciting magazine that does its best to champion new photographers. The outcome is a beautiful, thought-provoking print magazine, which is a pleasure to read, and has been brought into fruition by Shanghai-based self-publishing group Same Paper, who have been dedicated to photography since 2013.
The images shown in slideshow above are by Kanghee Kim, Go Itami, Ryan Oskin, David Brandon Geeting, Daniel Everett and John Maclean.
Editors: Xiaopeng Yuan and Yijun Wang
Designers: Jinkui Zhou and Jialiang Zhong