The tremendous power and complex mysteries that lie at the heart Chinese culture, documented in Patrick Zachmann's decade-long cross-cultural study
Patrick Zachmann
"I became a photographer because I have no memory. Photography allows me to reconstruct the family albums I never had, the missing images becoming the engine of my research. My contact sheets are my personal diary."
- Patrick Zachmann
Patrick Zachmann was born in France in 1955. A freelance photographer since 1976 and full member of Magnum Photos since 1990, he has dedicated himself to long-term projects on cultural identity, memory and immigration.
Zachmann’s reportage on the Naples Mafia led to the publication of the book Madonna! (1982). From 1982 to 1984, he worked both on a project on highway landscapes, supported by the French Ministry of Culture, and on the challenges of integration facing young French Arabs in the northern neighborhoods of Marseilles.
After working for seven years on a personal project about Jewish identity, Zachmann published his second book, Enquête d’Identité (1987). In 1989, his story on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square was widely published in the international press. Together with other photographers, he created Droit de Regard, an association for the protection and promotion of authorship in press photography.
Still fascinated by the themes of immigration, Zachmann focused on the Chinese diaspora, resulting in the book W., ou L’Œil d’un Long Nez (1995), followed by a critically acclaimed exhibition. In 1997, he exhibited his work on Malian emigration.
Between 1996 and 1998, Zachmann directed the short film La Mémoire de mon père, followed by his first feature-length film Allers-Retour: Journal d’un photographe. Both won awards and were featured in numerous film festivals.
In 2009, Zachmann presented a retrospective on his 25 years of work concerning immigration and French suburbs at Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration in Paris, with an accompanying book, Ma proche banlieue (My dearest suburb). An exhibition at MEP in Paris, So long, China, focused on Zachmann’s work in China from 1982 to 2015; the book received the 2016 Nadar Award. The Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme in Paris produced a retrospective and a book, Voyages de mémoire (2022). Zachmann has also been the official photographer of the reconstruction of Notre-Dame cathedral since the fire on April 15, 2019, and will continue to document and exhibit this historical project until the end of the process.
