Hitting the motherlode
Two very different creative types join forces on a unique new artbook
Motherland Chronicles is a collaborative artbook by New York-based photographer Zhang Jingna and artist Tobias Kwan.
The project was conceived as a platform for Jingna, who began working professionally for Harper’s Bazaar when she was just aged 20, to revisit the things she loved as a child – specifically fantasy art, anime and manga.
For the project she’s teamed up with Tobias, a concept artist working at Californian video game developer Ready at Dawn, because, she says, “having a partner is infinitely more fun and exciting than doing a project alone”.
The result is a collection of mesmerising otherworldly images, which have so far been featured in My Modern Metropolis, the British Journal of Photography and Vogue. “Jingna focuses on portraits,” Tobias says. “So I wait for previews from her shoot before starting on a piece to match her characters and provide more context within the environments.” The ambitious collaboration sees the pair create new artwork every week, leading to the release of a book in summer 2014.
Motherland Chronicles includes a stellar line up of guest artists, such as Naomi Chen, cellar-fcp and Noah KH. Find out more at
www.motherlandchronicles.com.