Dinu Li

Dinu Li (born 1966) is a Hong Kong/British photographer and multimedia artist. His publication The Mother of All Journeys was shortlisted for the 2007 Rencontres d'Arles Photobook Award. His work has been included in numerous publications, such as The Chinese Art Book showcasing artworks by two hundred significant Chinese artists since the Shang Dynasty.

Life and influences Li was born in 1965, moving with his parents from Hong Kong to England, first to Sheffield and then to Manchester. Weekly school trips to the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester, sparked his interest in historical paintings, especially Vermeer

His interest in photography dates back to childhood hours spent re-arranging and fictionalising family photographs on his mother's dressing table. In his twenties he was inspired by Exiles by Josef Koudelka and In Flagrante by Chris Killip. Li photographed customers of high-street internet booths in Manchester as they phoned 'home' abroad, their bodies in one space and their minds elsewhere. For his photobook The Mother of All Journeys (2003–2007), Li travelled with his elderly mother back to all her previous homes, in the UK, Hong Kong, and rural China, reflecting on the part photography plays in the construction of personal memory.

Re-presentations In his photographic series Secret Shadows (2002) Li created 'portraits' of illegal migrants working in London's Chinese restaurant trade, through images of their possessions and living quarters. In We Write Our Own History (2017) he collaborated with political activists unable to safely reveal their identities, who restaged their unofficial, alternative memories of the 2014 Umbrella protests by arranging everyday items on table tops.

Memory and translation The Anatomy of Place (2007–2017) is a trilogy of films consisting of Ancestral Nation, 2007, Family Village, 2009, and Nation Family, 2017, three alternative translations of the Chinese written word 'country'. In Nation Family, Li constructed a fictional narrative inspired by an actual relative's time working in a Cultural Revolution labour camp.

Publications . . . . . . . .

Exhibitions He has had solo exhibitions across the UK, including The Anatomy of Place, London, 2018, As If I were a River, Manchester, 2005 and Treasured Island, An Tobar, The Isle of Mull, 2001. the 3rd Bucharest Biennale, Romania; , Bildmuseet, Sweden, 2008; and the touring exhibition Home'', 2004 with the Chinese Arts Centre.