Michele Brunetti

Q-Can Art Museum, Shanghai I step into the first room of the Q-Can Art Museum in Shanghai and come face to face with a massive wooden model. A temple, standing at the center of the space. Around it, photographs and documents trace the life and work of Liang Sicheng. A couple of long tables display archival materials, sketching out the man and the architect. The exhibition isn’t empty, as I expected. Nine people are here with me. Considering the subject matter, that’s practically a crowd.   Liang Sicheng was born on April 20, 1901, in Tokyo, Japan. His father, the prolific scholar and reformist Liang Qichao, was living in exile after the failed Hundred Days’ Reform. When the Qing dynasty collapsed in 1911, the family returned to China. His father briefly held a position in the new Republic’s government. But when power fell into the hands of the Beiyang Clique—a coalition of northern warlords—Liang Qichao stepped away from politics and devoted himself to introducing Western thought to Chinese society through literature and social movements.   Liang Sicheng grew up in this progressive atmosphere, surrounded by culture and innovation. In 1915, he entered Tsinghua College in Beijing, marking the beginning of

Fragments. Broken shapes. Pieces of things, but never the whole. What does it mean to frame something? The rules say subjects should be centered. Or off to the side. The golden ratio. The rule of thirds. But can an image be made of just a fragment? After all, that too is a frame. And someone might say, “You tried to capture an object, but you failed.” But what does it even mean to fail? And why should framing always mean capturing the whole? Are full images ever really whole? Maybe what we call ‘whole’ is just another illusion. A comfortable lie we tell ourselves so that things make sense. Many of these fragmented shots happen because I use a rangefinder. It’s a sophisticated tool, sure. Precise, even. But it has its quirks. The viewfinder doesn’t show exactly what the lens sees. Sometimes it gives me images where the subject doesn’t quite fit. The edges get cut off. A hand missing here, a face slightly out of frame. The composition feels… accidental. Do I mind? Not really. Even these mistakes have their own kind of intrigue. Maybe they even have a reason to exist. What I post here isn’t a finished