“Huang Qingjun: Family Stuff" at the Carl Sandburg College Art Gallery -- September 5 through October 11.
Exhibit: Friday September 5, through Saturday, October 11
Opening Reception: Friday, September 5, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Carl Sandburg College Art Gallery, Building D, 2400 Tom . Wilson Boulevard, Galesburg IL
An art project spanning more than 20 years and including some 150 photographs, he photography exhibit Huang Qingjun: Family Stuff opens the 2025-26 art-show season at Galesburg's Carl Sandburg College, this September 5 through October 11 showcase a series of deeply personal works by the artist who has been featured by the New York Times and the BBC.
Award-winning veteran photographer Huang Qingjun is a native of China who now lives in Peoria, In the artist's new Family Stuff exhibition, he gathers a family’s belongings from different spaces in their home and arranges them in one place to take a photograph with the family members. Many of the photos are taken outdoors with the home as the background.
“Ninety percent of my previous works were shot in China during a time of rapid economic development, modernization and globalization,” Qingjun said. “I used this method of staged photographs to record history. In the photos, a household’s real interior space is briefly exposed in an external space; also can be seen are environment changes, urban expansion, technological advancements and shifts in people's lifestyles. Through static documentation of the above, I create a dynamic social panorama.”
In 2022, Qingjung began photographing American families as part of his Family Stuff project. “I spend a significant amount of time preparing for each photo, getting to know the story of the subjects, visiting their rooms, contemplating the concept of the shoot, and carefully selecting the items for display,” Qingjun said. “The concepts of these works cover the lifestyle of native-born Americans, immigrants' nostalgia for their homeland, as well as themes of love, work, identity, gender and the passage of time.”
Through the course of his active career, Qingjun has had solo exhibitions featured in Beijing; Amsterdam; Dresden, Germany; and Nuremberg, Germany. He has also been part of group exhibitions in Beijing; Paris; New York; Geneva; Helsinki; Bordeaux, France; and Athens, Greece.
An opening reception for Huang Qingjun: Family Stuff will be held in the Building D art gallery on September 5 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., and the exhibit itself will be on display through October 11. Regular gallery hours are weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., admission to the gallery is free, and more information is available by contacting gallery director and art program coordinator Lisa Walker at (309)341.5303 or ldwalker@sandburg.edu, and by visiting Sandburg.edu.
