Shortly after quietly deleting French photographer Patrick Wack's Xinjiang photographs, Kodak's official Instagram account finally responded.
On July 20, the Kodak Ins account issued a statement explaining that the account had recently published WACKER photographic works, and that the copy was provided by the photographer and not written by Kodak.
"The Kodak Ins account aims to stimulate creativity in the film medium by providing a platform and does not want to be a platform for political commentary," the statement concluded by stressing, "The views expressed by Mr. WACKER do not represent the views of Kodak and are not endorsed by Kodak, and we apologize for the misunderstanding or offense that the post may cause."
Screenshot of Kodak Ins
Previously, on July 15, Kodak posted eight photos taken in Xinjiang by photographer Wacker, who had lived in China for 11 years, on Ins, and endorsed the promotion of its pre-sale xinjiang photo album. Kodak reposted the promotional copy wacker had written for the photo album unchanged.
The copywriter actually said that "the photographs record the severe oppression of the locals", "captured the visual story of Xinjiang from 2016 to 2020, and witnessed the sudden fall of the place into an Orwellian dystopia" and so on.
WACKER has visited Xinjiang several times over two periods, first in 2016-17 and second in 2019, completing two Xinjiang photo albums called Out West and The Night is Thick. Wacker's new photo collection Dust is a more complete collection of images about Xinjiang taken in the past, many of which are from the previous two series.
But judging from The WACKER self-statement forwarded by Kodak, he is full of misunderstandings and prejudices about Xinjiang, so the motivation for visiting Xinjiang is not simply to record the beauty.
In the copy he forwarded by Kodak, he wrote that his original intention of visiting Xinjiang was to compare the myth of the American conquest of the west in the 19th century with the Chinese myth of the 21st century. In interviews, he misinterpreted the Chinese government's development of the west as "conquest" and "oppression," and repeatedly stressed that xinjiang's literal English translation is "new frontier." In recent press releases about his work, the Chinese government has always written about what the Chinese government calls "suppressing ethnic minorities."
WACKER Xinjiang photography released by Kodak
The observer network inquired on the afternoon of the 19th to confirm that the official Ins account of Kodak has deleted the Xinjiang photographic works of Patrick Wack released on the 15th.
From 2006 to 2017, WACKER worked as a freelance photographer in China and lived in Shanghai. So far, WACKER itself has not responded to the incident.
On the same day that Kodak reposted his work, WACKER shared some of the photos from the upcoming album through his personal Ins account. He photographed a building from a rare perspective, with the caption "Decaying New Town and Overly Large Government Buildings" and reminded fans that "the pre-sale link to the new portfolio is in the profile."
On July 18, some Weibo netizens found Kodak's Instagram Xinjiang-related photos, which had not been deleted at that time. The netizen posted on Weibo that Kodak "controlled the comments" in the comment area of Instagram and deleted his message.
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