Andy Summers

The Bones of Chuang Tzu is British photographer Andy Summers' (born 1942) interpretation of China. Influenced by many aspects of Asian culture since his teenage years and particularly the writings of fourth-century Chinese poet and philosopher Chuang Tzu, this book is a logical culmination of these interests. Rather than a collection of standard pictures of China, Summers focuses on aspects of China that are rapidly disappearing. But rather than romanticizing the past and seeing photography as an act of preservation, his pictures gesture toward the vitality of a culture. “I found myself no longer shooting everything that confronted me,” says Summers, “but rather slicing out pieces of my environment that would express something other: photographs as haiku. From Shanghai to Tibet, The Bones of Chuang Tzu reflects what happened.”