These images make up my latest project Impersonating Mao. For this work I strove to capture and preserve the alternate life of Zhang, an impersonator who assumes the appearance and bearing of Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China. After first encountering him I returned to Beijing in 2010 to shoot him extensively. With some of the photographs, we re-created archival photographs taken of the original Mao Zedong.
I first witnessed Zhang while he was posing as Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square in 2008. I was immediately struck by his careful construction of an alternate identity and his embodiment of one of China’s most iconic historical figures. Making no financial gain from the activity, it became evident that for Zhang the experience was a far deeper one, a personal homage to a bygone era. The undertaking fulfills his desire to flee reality and escape. This is a notion that is central to work.