Iconic photojournalist Liu Heung-shing tells Matt Fleming about his new book which puts the tumultuous events of early 20th century China in the frame and available on the Mainland for the first time

When it comes to inspirational photography, Liu Heung-shing is a world leader. The 59-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner used his lens to help tell the story of China in the post-Mao years (including the Tiananmen Square protests) and let his camera do the talking during the collapse of the Soviet Union. But now he is releasing a photo book of pictures by other people – one that will be a first on the shelves in China.

Liu, a former photojournalist who lives in Beijing, met with Time Out as he unveiled The Road to 1911 exhibition at Hong Kong University, which comes ahead of the release of the book, 1911, in China (the English version is called China In Revolution: The Road To 1911).

The book contains more than 300 photographs from the years surrounding the October 10, 1911, Wuchang Uprising, which was a catalyst to the Xinhai Revolution and eventually led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the start of the Republic of China. Marking the centenary, the Hong Kong exhibition, which coincides with HKU’s 100th anniversary, displays 86 of the pictures. Starting from September 20, a total of 10 exhibitions will open simultaneously across China, showing 120 photographs.

Liu says it is the first time such an expansive photo book dealing with ‘a period dominated, in the Chinese mind, by imperialism’ and ‘a good deal of humiliation at the hands of foreign national agendas’ will be on sale in mainland China. “I feel the West has dealt with its own imperial and post-imperial history,” says Liu. “As [Henry] Kissinger mentions in his latest book on China, the events of this period and the sense of victimhood they produced continue to affect China today, and the way it defines its role in the world. There is a legacy here that needs to be addressed. It is easier to present these facts as a visual history. Photography is not judgemental.”

Liu was born in Hong Kong, educated here and on the Mainland, and went to university in New York. He apprenticed with legendary Albanian-American photographer Gjon Mili before setting out on a career with Associated Press. From 1978 to 1994 he was posted to China, the USA, India, South Korea and the former Soviet Union.

In 1989 he directed AP’s coverage of the Tiananmen Square protests and an image he took of the turmoil was awarded Picture of the Year by the Jury of the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. In the same year, he was named best photographer by AP. In 1991 he got the Overseas Press Club Award for coverage of the collapse of the Soviet Union and in 1992 he shared the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography with AP staff, for the same coverage.

He says he left AP in 1994 for a sabbatical ‘and I never returned’. He later worked for Time Warner and News Corp before going solo in 2006. In 2005, Paris Photo named him as one of the 100 most influential people in contemporary photography.

His photo-books have included 1983’s China After Mao (which has just been published on the Mainland after 28 years, earning Liu a Chinese literary prize last month) and China, Portrait of a Country (an epic visual history of the 60 years of the People’s Republic). He also co-authored, with Karen Smith, Shanghai, A History in Photographs 1842 to Today – but 1911 could become his masterpiece due to the new (or old, depending on how you look at it) ground it covers.

Liu says that after the Shanghai book, Beijing World Arts Museum asked him to put something together to mark the 1911 centenary. “I said OK,” he remembers, “because China is not terribly familiar with photography as a language of history or communication. I also feel that, in terms of the so-called national patriotic education, it is absolutely essential that as China rises, it must embrace that history – even if it is imperialist history. It constitutes a collective memory but one that has been distorted by ideologically-coloured words. That language doesn’t gel with the younger generations. They need to see it for themselves.”

Liu also says China can’t just focus on the present realm of economic reform. It needs to acknowledge its past. “How you accept history and embrace history is important,” he says. “For better or for worse, it is what happened. It’s China’s heritage.”

Liu procured the photographs from a range of sources from around the world. “Technically, the backroom work was humungous,” he says. “All these images were taken in China by missionaries, military, diplomats, adventurers and travellers. I hope that Chinese people will be surprised, moved, and gain a new understanding of what happened in this period. This is history you can see.”

Liu thinks the Chinese government should ‘preserve and expand’ its archive of photos of this tumultuous period around 1911. “I think Chinese people are now, relatively speaking, more comfortable within their own skin,” he says. “I don’t want them to keep looking at history as though they are the victim. Even though people before were victims, they mustn’t go on feeling that today. It’s no longer appropriate for the second most powerful nation in the world to keep talking about a 100-year-old humiliation. That, to me, is too abstract. It’s time to move on.”

China In Revolution: The Road to 1911 is published by Hong Kong University Press, priced $680 (available from October). 1911 is published by Commercial Press and will be available in mainland China. The Road to 1911 exhibition is held at Hong Kong University’s Museum and Art Gallery.