Trilogy

Trilogy, by Magnum photographer Lu Nan draws together three major series of work documenting marginalised communities. Previously only published in his native China, this is the first English language publication of the renowned photographer’s work.

The first section of the book draws on The Forgotten Ones, a haunting study of the living conditions of China’s psychiatric patients. For this project, Lu Nan visited 38 mental institutions across ten provinces and major cities, as well as numerous families in their private houses. In China, there is a social stigma around mental illness, and Lu Nan’s often difficult, photographs of those cast aside by the mainstream, aim to present the situation with a careful and honest empathy.

The second section of the book On the Road, documents the underground activity of the Catholic Church in China. Created between 1992 and 1996, Lu Nan visited over one hundred churches and religious pilgrimages to document believers at a time when there was a government campaign to shut down all unregistered church meetings. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–76), the demonstration of religious life was forbidden in China – worshippers were arrested, imprisoned, and sometimes tortured for their devotion, Catholic homes were raided and Bibles were confiscated. The photographs depict secret religious activities conducted in secret, revealing the lives of a population dedicated resolutely to their faith in the face of discrimination and hardship.

The final section of the book, Four Seasons draws upon Lu Nan’s photographs of the daily lives of Tibetan peasants whose livelihoods depend on the whims of mother nature. This series was made over the course of nine separate trips, often living with farmers and their families, to capture the rural existence through harsh unforgiving winters, planting season and autumn’s harvest.