[1]

She is tucked away in the corner of the room, camouflaged by a floral quilt and a pile of flannel cotton shirts wedged between the bed and the desk. She’s nestled in an alcove of the bed, the desk and the walls. Made to feel safe, in her fabric fort, she naps. Other than the ticking hand of the clock and the slight rhythmic rise and fall of her breathing, all is quiet.

He quickly steps through the jarred door to the middle of the room, camouflaged by his camera. It’s hard to infer how much time elapsed between his discovery of the napping girl and the pressing of his shutter. Photography is ‘an encounter, a surprise’ to the French Photographer Marc Riboud, so it’s unlikely that he had been there for long, meticulously composing a frame. I picture his right leg taking a small step backwards, his body subconsciously gives way to his camera as it lowers into a quick half squat. He holds a breath. And I hold a breath as I picture him.

Dreams are fleeting yet the photograph eternalises the act of dreaming. 

[2]

I imagine the moment was captured with a surge of spontaneity, driven by intuition and curiosity. 

I wonder, when Riboud made this napping girl the protagonist of a frozen frame, was he drawn into the stillness of the moment he stumbled upon? Did he linger for a while to make sure he didn’t disturb her dream? 

Surely the napping girl was unaware of the chance encounter. After all, it’s single-sided. but I wonder if she had ever found out about the photographer that had immortalized her nap in 1965. 

I believe that a photographer, although most of the time unseen, is never invisible in a photograph. 

A photographer’s intention is ingrained deeply within the frame he’s chosen, no matter how accidental or trivial. And to see a photograph, our sight is only built upon the eyes of the photographer. 

[3]

If it weren’t for a chance encounter at a preview for an auction, this particular photo by Marc Riboud probably would’ve never caught my eyes, for he had taken countless photos during his 22 visits to China over 60 years, and this particular photo is too unassuming in comparison to others. Although it is collected in “Visions of China”, aside from the book, very little can be found about the photograph. I don’t blame it, the first time I laid my eyes on it, I quickly dismissed it too. 

[4]

At first glance, my eyes darted and my mind jumped to judgement, I deemed the photograph ordinary. It captures a person taking a nap, a scene that any of us encounters on any day. So I moved on quickly. It’s easy for photographs to elicit reactions in me upon first sight because they are usually charged with immense energy. Although with this one, at best, it was a lolled curiosity that was largely fuelled by spectatorship — an ordinary photo (mercilessly deemed by me) by a famous photographer at an auction, an interesting case study on the value of art if nothing else. 

Strangely, as I walked through the entire exhibition, the photo slowly began to develop in my mind as it would have in a dark room. The elements in the scene manifested in a dream-like fashion, the dotted ordinary details that I had dismissed began to take hold of me. Even the blandness of the photo started to intrigue me — What sparked Riboud to capture this moment? Was he drawn in the same way I am? 

My curiosity soon grew beyond the initial spectatorship. As I’ve proven myself wrong, I was too quick to judge, the photo deserved more time. 

It pulled me back. 

[5]

This time, instead of looking, I tried to see. 

I realised that the ordinariness I observed earlier actually came from a sense of familiarity. This new understanding put me right in the moment. As I became the napping girl, I realised that what’s in front of my eyes, is an honest moment unembellished without worry — the worry of an outsider’s gaze. 

This is a moment only shared between the closest of family. This moment could be the strangest and most unfamiliar moment to our protagonist herself, yet it’s been eternalised and made so public. When one’s sleeping, how would she know what’s happening in the world outside her dreams? 

I was so intimately close to the moment. All of a sudden, I felt like an intruder, I became lamented for the thought of intrusion. 

Yet, I have been invited by Riboud, haven’t I? I was peering in through the door Riboud has opened for me, to see a moment like this, to be in a moment like this, I hold gratitude but also regrets in my heart as I keep seeing. 

Was this what Riboud felt too?

[6] 

According to the photographer’s note, ‘[t]he family’s most precious possessions are gathered in one corner of the room[.]’ Coincidentally, the objects that build up the family possession also fill up the rest of Riboud’s frame. 

Giving the objects a majority of the frame and tucking the napping girl away in the bottom corner, was it a conscious choice or an intuitive reaction? 

Perhaps Riboud also felt the intrusion I felt, therefore he let the surroundings take the unwanted attention away from the girl. Perhaps Riboud’s unconventional composition was driven purely by intuition, to include the world the girl sleeps in, as if it is what makes up her dreams. 

Or, did Riboud find similarity in the arrangement of the precious family possession and the western idea of the ‘Wunderkammer’? In that case, our napping girl, quietly slumbering away, is she the guardian of the family ‘Wunderkammer’, or, is the collection of family processions quietly guarding her?

“Leave her be,” as if they whisper quietly. “Leave her be,” as if the photographer echos the whisper with his camera. 

On this thought, I quietened my breath, held my body still, and covertly removed my gaze from her. I let my eyes drift in the room while she drifts away in her dreams. 

[7] 

When my gaze landed on the name on the Certificates of Merit on the wall, it was an exhilarating discovery, a ‘tiny spark of accident’. 

Struggling at the end of a feudal society in the 1930s and 40s, being able to make ends meet was a wish of many Chinese families. The name on the certificates, Jin Nengfu (金能富) is a name from this era. It’s probably the napping girl’s father’s name. The last name Jin (金）means “gold” or “money”, the given name “Nengfu”（能富）means “can become rich”. It carries a family’s humblest and most practical wish for a better life.  

In China, a name might not be sacred but it is always heavy. It carries the bloodlines and it carries the wish for a child to alter a family’s fate. But beyond that, it also mirrors the time one is born into, and it contains the shifts of society. 

Yet, a name that is ladened with a family’s wish and a country’s shifting circumstance is only reactive to its time. Wishful thinking is ground in reality but is rarely realized. 

Marc Riboud believed that ‘photography cannot change the world, but it can show the world, especially when it changes.’ 

[8]

This photo captures a moment in a housing project for workers in Changchun, China, in 1965. Between 1961 and 1965, the country has worked hard to revive socially and economically from the previous traumas. However, the gaps of ideologies and different agendas of the political leaders only lay out an unpredictable future. For a country that has persevered through many hardships and a society that is happy to embrace steady growth, another storm is brewing unbeknownst to the napping girl and the many like her. 

Against the social-political backdrop of Chinese society then, this lesser-known photo of a napping girl departs from a simple slice of life and takes on a new narrative. Riboud’s photograph captures such a placid moment yet it’s ironic to look back at the people that have struggled through the next decade with little peace of mind. 

[9]

Years have gone by, the China in Riboud’s vision has also changed dramatically. The country has long healed from the wounds of the past, fewer and fewer people will remember the growing pain of that particular era, but there will always be the version of China that Riboud captured with his camera. 

He was acting ‘[to] be the eyes [… to] the doors [that] are opening’. Being the silent observer, quietly slipping in and out of moments, he transported the viewers into the ephemeral eternities he weaved through his peering into the worlds. 

I wonder when the napping girl woke up from her slumber, did she sense the change in the air? ||

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Bibliography

• Riboud, M., 1981. Visions of China. Travelling Light.

• Barthes, R., 1993. Camera Lucida. Vintage.

• Susan Sontag, year unknown. 

• Yingyiauctions.com, 2021 <https://www.yingyiauctions.com/bjyy/auctionWith.html?z=1&p=5414&c=1&l=918&t=1> accessed June 25, 2021‌

• “Wunderkammer: A Century of Curiosities” (The Museum of Modern Art2018) <https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/272> accessed June 25, 2021

• Benjamin, W., 1972. A Short History of Photography. Screen, 13(1), pp.5-26.

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