UNDERCURRENTS (惊涛骇浪) is a nine-year photographic project by Zhu Mo (朱墨), documenting the landscapes, people, and encounters he experienced while travelling along China’s national highways. Rather than imposing a fixed narrative on the photographs, we approached the book as an opportunity to question the conventions of the traditional photobook and the idea of a predetermined sequence.
The book translates the photographer’s state of aimless wandering into a tangible reading experience. 64 colour photographs are presented as individual loose sheets, hand-collated into the book. They can be removed, moved and rearranged. The book also preserves photographs left unresolved during editing, presented in black and white as alternative possibilities and paths not taken.
Bright-blue page numbers run continuously from beginning to end, creating an uninterrupted current through the nearly 400-page book. Rough-cut edges, blank space, and the physical movement of photographs turn the act of editing into part of the reading experience—photographs become not a fixed narrative, but something that remains in a state of flux.
The book translates the photographer’s state of aimless wandering into a tangible reading experience. 64 colour photographs are presented as individual loose sheets, hand-collated into the book. They can be removed, moved and rearranged. The book also preserves photographs left unresolved during editing, presented in black and white as alternative possibilities and paths not taken.
Bright-blue page numbers run continuously from beginning to end, creating an uninterrupted current through the nearly 400-page book. Rough-cut edges, blank space, and the physical movement of photographs turn the act of editing into part of the reading experience—photographs become not a fixed narrative, but something that remains in a state of flux.
JIAZAZHI (JZZP),
2026
2026
