To a young Coco Capitán, China was the most remote place in the world. She often thought that if she dug deep enough in her back garden, she might reach it on the other side of the world. When she realized this wasn’t possible, she decided to place herself at the psychological middle point between her house and this distant land. For Coco, China came to symbolize a desire of running away as well as her future goals. While her house represented her present reality. It is this dichotomy — of China real and China imagined — that is the basis of her debut photobook: Middle Point Between My House and China.
“I wanted to take images that would denote how I perceived China, my personal experience in the country, and how I saw the people who were there,” Coco explains. “The middle ground in the book lies between the self and the other. Photographing is an exercise that links two ends: the photographer and the subject being photographed, explored. A photograph speaks both about the photographer and the sitter. When I say “middle point” I refer to that space that appears when you start looking at something different to your everyday life.”
Ahead of the book’s launch, we take a trip down memory lane with these raw and beautiful pictures.
Credits
Text Tish Weinstock
Images courtesy of Coco Capitán © Middle Point Between My House and China by Coco Capitán, Maximillian William, 2017.