March 12, 2022
Mei Mei Installation image, The SPACE Art Gallery, 2022. Photo credit: Amie Potsic
Seen Through a Lens of Reverence
Mei Mei, the current exhibition at The Space Art Gallery, is a poignant collection of portraits by photographer Richard Bowen. Over decades, Bowen photographed orphaned girls in China waiting to be adopted in pop-up studios he brought to the sites. He did so to honor their presence and to document the work of One Sky, the organization he and his wife founded to support these girls in need.
On view are exquisite black and white portraits of the girls presented in a large-scale grid. It is powerful to see the portraits, mostly with eyes looking straight at the camera, in relationships created by the grid’s imposed architecture: You can see an arresting close-up of a child’s eyes gazing upward next to a girl’s heart-breaking look over the shoulder near a little girl standing up with her hand casually in her pocket. Their similarity and their specificity couldn’t be more pronounced. They share a jarring conformity yet each girl is clearly her own person.
Bowen’s commitment to this subject was emboldened by his own experience of adopting two daughters from China. The empathy and sensitivity of the images are a testament to the love of a father for a daughter. The portraits have dignity and bear honest witness to the lives that began in such humble circumstances. His work documents an important political and social history as well as individuals deeply affected by it. The photographs are touching, sweet, and painful all at once. Bowen’s artistry was in conveying their strong emotions and singular identities through a lens of reverence.
- Amie Potsic
On view from February 1 - March 31, 2022, The SPACE Art Gallery welcomes the moving portraiture of photographer Richard Bowen, capturing the spirit of girls living in China’s state-run welfare institutions circa 2000.
About the Exhibition
There is an ancient Chinese legend that describes an invisible red thread joining those who are destined to connect, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. For photographer Richard Bowen, that thread led him to China’s state-run welfare institutions, at a time when there were thousands of children, primarily girls, growing up without families to take care of them. mei mei (circa 2000) presents a poignant glimpse of just a few of these remarkable children. Composed against neutral backgrounds, these portraits capture the girls’ inner lives, away from their often bleak surroundings. The images show an almost endless range of expressions: small faces filled with longing and hope, joy and sadness, humor and mischief, defiance and despair. Through the camera’s eye, we see these young vulnerable children as individuals with vital, distinct, and beautiful personalities that they rarely have the chance to express. Once each unique human being comes into focus, the connection is made, and the red thread becomes visible. And once seen, the bond can never be broken.
All the girls who appear in this show resided within China’s social welfare system circa 2000. Nearly all the girls here spent their childhoods in an institute, a lucky few have been adopted in China or abroad. When Richard photographed the girls, they were either actively attending, or about to begin attending, Half the Sky programs (now OneSky). Their names, listed around the edge of these banners in English and Mandarin, were given by welfare staff and are randomly presented to protect each young lady’s privacy.
“This was this totally unique period of history — creating the largest all-female diaspora ever.”
Richard Bowen, Mei Mei 55, Photo Courtesy of The SPACE Art Gallery, 2022.
Richard Bowen, Mei Mei 15, Photo Courtesy of The SPACE Art Gallery, 2022.
Richard Bowen, Mei Mei 16, Photo Courtesy of The SPACE Art Gallery, 2022.
Richard Bowen, Mei Mei 22, Photo Courtesy of The SPACE Art Gallery, 2022.
Richard Bowen, Mei Mei 59, Photo Courtesy of The SPACE Art Gallery, 2022.
Richard Bowen, Mei Mei 107, Photo Courtesy of The SPACE Art Gallery, 2022.
Richard Bowen, Mei Mei 127, Photo Courtesy of The SPACE Art Gallery, 2022.
About the Artist
Veteran Hollywood cameraman Richard Bowen began his career as a visual storyteller soon after graduating from university. While backpacking around Europe in the 1970s and taking photographs, he stumbled onto his first movie set, Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900. He instantly fell in love with film, returned to the US to complete graduate studies in filmmaking, and became a cinematographer.
Richard went on to build a successful 40-year career in more than 20 feature films and hundreds of TV commercials. His work appears in films by noted directors such as Sydney Pollack (Havana), Clint Eastwood (Flags of Our Fathers), Lawrence Kasdan (Wyatt Earp), and Tim Burton (Mars Attacks!). He also collaborated with his wife, screenwriter/director Jenny Bowen, on three independent productions: Street Music, The Wizard of Loneliness, and In Quiet Night.
In 1998, the Bowens’ experience adopting their first of two daughters from China helped inspire another collaboration: the creation of the nonprofit foundation Half the Sky (now known as OneSky for all children). They were thrilled with the turnaround their love could make for one small child – and determined to make a difference for all the little ones then languishing in China’s orphanages. Today, OneSky is a global NGO that has transformed the lives of over 200,000 marginalized children and helped a nation re-imagine its entire child welfare system.
Richard’s OneSky work returned him to his still photography roots. Traveling across China to different orphanages, he began to document the children he met “and let them speak to the world.” These are the mei mei (“Little Sister”) photographs you see here.
While the Bowens lived in China in 2004-2009, Richard made a discovery. The Cinderella story many of us associate with Disney or Grimm’s fairy tales had, in fact, originated in China in 768 AD. To share this original story with the world, Richard wrote, directed, and produced a new independent feature film: Cinderella Moon (2012). He shot the film entirely in China.
For Richard, Cinderella Moon and mei mei are inextricably connected. In different ways, both the film and the book tell the same story: girls are as valuable as boys and deserve the same chances in this world.
This show you are now viewing has been in the works since February 2019, delayed numerous times due to COVID-19. As he was finalizing the preparation and approving the final physical proofs, Richard suddenly passed away on December 25, 2021.
This show not only recognizes Richard’s powerful work but also the enduring legacy he leaves as OneSky continues to support the needs of vulnerable children around the world.
For more information, visit: https://www.thespacephiladelphia.com/online-store-richard-bowen
About OneSky
OneSky teaches communities and caregivers to provide nurturing responsive care and early education that unlocks the potential hidden in our world’s most vulnerable young children. OneSky believes the unlimited potential waits inside every child. And it should be every child’s birthright to have full access to loving, nurturing care and quality education. This show benefits OneSky.
For more information about the exhibition or to schedule a visit to the gallery, click here: https://www.thespacephiladelphia.com/