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　　Since January 11， 2014， Beijing Silvermine has been on display at the 4A Center for Contemporary Asian Art in Sydney.
　　The Shrinking Family Photo
　　When we look back， we become amused by ourselves at that time： people all fell in line， buying the exact same refrigerator， washing machine， curtain or calendar for their homes， posing with similar smiles in front of the flower beds， or sitting in the same place with “Uncle McDonald” outside the restaurant.
　　One standout is a photo of a woman in red dress standing in front of a refrigerator. I immediately recognized the Snow brand refrigerator， which every home seemed to have. I also recognized the exact same curtain， the tricolor glazed horse sculpture， and fake flowers on the refrigerator as we also had before. The curtain， the horse， and the fake flowers frequently appeared in many other photos.
　　The exhibition aimed to create a real-life experience for the audience， with photos revealing changes in material goods， entertainment， the landscape of the city， and ordinary lives of the residents in Beijing across twenty years. The unedited photos of ordinary people easily evoked memories and offered an impressive experience for spectators.
　　Twenty years ago， even in cities like Beijing， people still had limited options of commercial goods or entertainment to choose from. Such homogeneity， which seems a bit funny to us right now， was quite common and reasonable at that time. Only when we look back at the large quantity of photos of ordinary people can we realize how much China has changed over the past thirty years.
　　When he first came to China， he became interested in historical photos of China， and began collecting some albums. In 2009， Sauvin met a guy named Ma by chance， who was working in the recycling zone in Beijing and specialized in recycling trash that contained silver nitrate. The trash usually consisted of x-rays from hospitals， CDs， and also negatives. Ma put everything in a pool of liquid acid and waited for a week until the silver nitrate subsided. He then collected the silver nitrate and sold it to chemists.
　　Sauvin was heartbroken to see this as a photography collector. He decided to ask Ma to sell the negatives to him by the kilo. The first time， Ma sold him a huge bag of negatives weighing almost 50kg. From then on， Ma called Sauvin every one or two months when he found negatives. Over the following four years， Sauvin continued collecting all the negatives from Ma， and has now amassed over 650，000. It is the “Beijing Silvermine”.
　　Of all the negatives， the earliest can be dated back to the early 1980s， and most were taken before 2005， when digital cameras replaced film in China. Beijing Silvermine is a unique documentation of changes in the lives of ordinary residents in Beijing. Through the large-scale collection， Sauvin began to unveil an unedited portrait of China across twenty years since the beginning of reform and opening-up.
　　Sauvin’s collection covers another important period of China. Under huge population pressure， the family plan policy was officially enacted in 1979. The policy required each registered household in urban cities to have only one child. So it was also known as “One-Child Policy”. The family plan policy did not only affect the size of population， but also changed the family composition， age structure， and philosophy of Chinese people. Traditional close-bonded extended families were gradually replaced by more isolated and autonomous nuclear families.（节选）
　　　　Thomas Sauvin hails from France， and has been living in China for years. Sauvin does not think he is an artist. Instead， he recognizes himself as a curator， collector， and archivist.
　　Unedited Portrait of China
　　In initial stage of reform and opening-up， the material situation of Chinese people had began improving. Around 1985， film became popular with regular people in China. People began to use the camera to document every little change in their lives， such as a new refrigerator， a color TV， a new amusement park， flowers in Tian’anmen Square， or the first time dining at McDonald’s.