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Title
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Beijing Silvermine / Thomas Sauvin Archive
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Description
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A large corpus of vernacular prints, negatives, albums and objects that covers the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
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content
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This private collection contains:
- Over half a million 35mm anonymous colour negatives, and over 15.000 120mm anonymous black and white negatives, spanning the period from the 1950s to the 1980s
- Over 5000 loose prints from the twentieth century
- Over one hundred albums from the twentieth century
- Photographic objects and equipment from the twentieth century
Since 2009, the French collector and artist Thomas Sauvin (born in 1983 in Paris) has been salvaging discarded negatives from a recycling plant on the edge of Beijing that were destined to destruction. His collection is commonly known as “Beijing Silvermine”. He has been buying by the kilo, taking away rice bags filled with thousands or rolls of slobbery, dusty and scratched negative films. Moreover, he has also been acquiring a wide variety of prints, albums and photographic objects he finds in Chinese flea markets and on the Internet.
Most of the primary materials are held in Sauvin’s office in Paris. Once closely examined by Sauvin, negatives and prints are consistently selected, digitized, and classified in the chronological order based on their discovery. Digitized files are kept in Sauvin’s private computers and back-up.
Several publications originated from his collection (see references below).
Besides, Sauvin has been showcasing a variety of his collection in international exhibitions since 2011, such as at Dali Photo Festival (China), Singapore International Photo Festival (Singapore), FORMAT Photo festival (United Kingdom), Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago (USA), and Paris Photo (France). Sauvin frequently collaborates with Chinese and foreign artists who re-interpret his archive in a creative way.
In 2012, the director and journalist Emiland Guillerme directed a short documentary dedicated to Sauvin’s collection. The same year, a web-documentary created on behalf of France Culture and directed by Victoria Jonathan also examined Sauvin’s archive.
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vimeo.com
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pekin.franceculture.fr
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Language
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Chinese
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References
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Cabanes, Lucie. Lei Lei, Thomas Sauvin: Hand-colored. Montreuil: les Éditions de l'Oeil, 2017.
Cabos, Marine. “The Cultural Revolution Through the Prism of Vernacular Photography." Trans Asia Photography Review, Volume 8, Issue 1: Art and Vernacular Photographies in Asia, Fall (2017).
Koike, Kensuke and Thomas Sauvin. No More, No Less. Jesi: Skinnerboox, 2018.
Koike, Kensuke and Thomas Sauvin. No More, No Less. [China]: Jiazazhi Press, 2018.
Koike, Kensuke and Thomas Sauvin. No More, No Less. [France]: The M Éditions, 2018.
Sauvin, Thomas. Xian 线. Beijing : self-published, 2016.
Sauvin, Thomas. Until Death Do Us Part. Beijing : Jiazazhi Press, 2015.
Sauvin, Thomas. Silvermine. London: Archive of Modern Conflict, 2013.
Sauvin, Thomas, and Erik Kessels. Me Tv. Amsterdam : KesselsKramer Publishing, 2013.
Sauvin, Thomas, and Shuzhi Mei. Quan Shen 全身. London: Archive of Modern Conflict, 2013.
