This body of work examines time and memory through archival photographs of Chinese landscapes made by a young British student traveling across the country in the late 1980s. Reconstructed through layers and chromatic manipulation, the images explore the persistence of place after periods of historical transformation.

The photographs foreground landscape at a transitional moment in China’s modern history, before the large-scale urbanization and infrastructural expansion that would come to define the following decades. Human presence is minimal in these images, allowing geography and scale to shape the visual narrative.

Travel during this period unfolded slowly and unpredictably. Some journeys lasted days, including a continuous train ride from Beijing to Kunming without sleeping accommodations. Many of the photographs were taken from train windows.

About the Photographs

The original photos used in this work belong to Bill Austin, a student from the U.K. who was studying at Beijing Normal University in 1987. He returned to Newcastle to complete his undergraduate degree before traveling back to China to study at the Beijing Film Academy. He later worked as a freelance journalist for news agencies including Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, before joining Kyodo News as a staff correspondent. In 1994, Austin joined Bloomberg in Hong Kong, helping expand its news operations across China, South Korea and Japan over two decades.

More of Austin’s original photographs from China can be found on Instagram at @china1987archive.