Life, looking and thinking · Photography by Lu Heng

Before We Explain the World

  1. Orange objects and reflections by a window; Two red round objects reflect in a window beside a calm pale horizon.
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    Orange objects and reflections by a window

The world does not have to be explained before it deserves to be seen. I write down my judgements, and I photograph the moments that no single judgement can sum up. People, cities, mountains and seas, and the unnamed moments of everyday life: this is how I live with the world.

For twenty years I have travelled the world on my own and taken these photographs. Each belongs to a place, a moment and a story, and holds something of how it felt.

Begin with an orange at a window and follow the photographs for a while. Mountains and cities lie in the distance; close at hand, a face, a glass, a drop of water.

Lu Heng

6 halls · 51 stories · 365 photographs

Open a photograph to look closer.

1You are entering

Leaving the Known

From an orange at a window to roads, wings and coastlines, the camera takes us outwards.

1Leaving the Known

Near and Far

Story 1 of 51 · 4 photographs

Begin with the orange by the window, then look out towards the city. One photograph holds two very different scales. Twenty years of photographs can begin with something small enough to hold.

  1. A hanging light above the water; A small dark pendant light hangs over pale water, with a distant city blurred behind it.
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    A hanging light above the water

  2. A jade pendant in daylight; A translucent faceted pendant hangs against a soft blue-grey background.
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    A jade pendant in daylight

  1. A jade pendant against blue; A pale carved pendant hangs against a clear blue background.
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    A jade pendant against blue