Polaroid Lives!

So you thought the Polaroid was dead? Apparently not.

Platform China in Caochangdi, which prides itself on promoting the new and the emerging, have made the humble medium the focus of its current group show, running till July 19.

The curator, Qiu Xiaofei, is intrigued by the Polaroid’s uniqueness within photography, that once the image appears it becomes the only possible copy. Inevitably a Polaroid will look over-exposed or much too dark, but there is nothing you can do. This sets the Polaroid entirely apart from the work of a digital camera, or one developed in a darkroom, and gives it its own plucky integrity. A Polaroid is always simply itself.

At Platform you can see 13 young photographers, including Lu Tingting, Yang Dawei and Hu Xiaoyuan riffing on the unique charms of the Polaroid, playing on the casualness of the medium, but also on its essential poignancy. Because as every Polaroid-taker knows, their images will fade, age and curl, and like the memories they capture, will diminish over time. Check it out.