Rong Rong was born in 1968 in Zhangzhou. He studied painting at the Fujian Industrial Art Institute in 1986 and worked in a studio taking passport photos and wedding pictures. In 1993, he moved to the Beijing East Village. In 2007 Rong Rong, his wife, and another artist, Inri, opened Three Shadows Photography Art Centre It is a Beijing complex with exhibition space, a workshop with darkrooms, and an educational center with a library. Rong Rong’s series of photographs, “The Wedding Gown” are held in the Getty Museum (Getty).
The Wedding Gown series was created in an abandoned village forty miles from Beijing. It was meant to be used as a metaphor for innocence and femininity (Getty). The photographs show a dreamlike story of death, cleansing, and a potential rebirth. Rong Rong himself is the lone nude figure in the photos. He shows himself moving around the destitute village as if he can’t find anything. The two people are lovers who seem to be searching for something. We, the audience are meant to think of what that missing thing is. In the last photograph we see Rong Rong burning the corpses of the women. The frustration is that the two lovers are unsure of what they are searching for. Also, there is criticism of weddings and all the rituals that surround them. Rong Rong shows this through the savage-like nature of the lovers and their actions. They want to be united, but something is standing in their way.
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