The Three Shadows Photography Art Centre was established three years ago. Its founders, Rong Rong and inri, have been collaborating for about ten years, and this exhibition aims to celebrate this collaboration.

Rong Rong and inri met in 1999, using images as a go-between; it was love at first sight. Before this, they had been independent photographers, each having created significant bodies of work. RongRong’s extended photographic record of artists living Beijing’s East Village (1993-1998) has become an important archival resource for the study of Chinese contemporary art and photograph.

In autumn 2000, inri came to Beijing. She and Rong Rong went to the Great Wall and Jiayu Guan. In the face of nature, they opened another piece of sky, especially when, at first, they could not use language to communicate. Photography was their only language; the camera became their common eye. With nature as a backdrop, they started to collaborate in the true sense.

In 2001, Rong Rong was invited to participate in an exhibition in Tokyo, Japan. Rong Rong and inri registered to be married as soon as he got there. Later they went to Mt. Fuji together and created a series of fantastic works. In Mount Fuji, Japan Series includes sixteen photographs. On a frozen lake, in temperatures of fifteen to sixteen degrees below zero, they stripped naked and took pictures with a timer, recording this special period in their lives.

The works they created after they met took on a completely new appearance. They both bid goodbye to their lonely struggle in the dark, and embraced themes of life, youth, passion, and the calm and harmony of nature.

They then returned to Beijing to live in Liulitun. In 2002, Rong Rong and inri were informed that they had to leave that area. That year, 798’s first gallery group show, Beijing Afloat, opened at Beijing Tokyo Art Projects. In the large factory that served as the gallery’s original location, Rong Rong and inri created their We Are Here series.

In 2003, Liulitun was demolished, and so Rong Rong and inri held a silent funeral for their former home. In the images, they wear black coats and hold white lilies, silently sitting on their gateway. After Liulitun was demolished, they thought more deeply about issues of the individual and the city, destruction and construction. In September 2003, Rong Rong and inri held the Tui-Transfiguration: The Image World of RongRong and inri in the space which is now the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art. Curated by Wu Hung, this was the first solo exhibition in the 798.
      
In 2004, they moved their studio to Caochangdi, a quiet and unique place. That same year, their first child was born.
      
In 2005, they created RongRong & inri 2005 Series. The double images carry a Zen-like mood. Also in 2005, they started to visualize a public photography space. The earliest dream was to establish a public photography library, and later, because they felt that the there was a lack of exhibition space for Chinese photography, this small dream gradually grew. In the end, it was expanded to a complete photography art center which contained exhibition halls, a traditional darkroom, a digital production center, a library, a permanent photography collection, a multi-purpose room, and artist in residence apartments.
      
In 2006, Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, which Rong Rong and inri funded and founded, formally broke ground in Caochangdi. They invited Ai Weiwei to serve as designer for the space.
      
In early 2007, their second child was born. In June of that year, Three Shadows Photography Art Centre opened to the public; the first exhibition was the ten-year retrospective of New Photo.
      
In 2008, their third child was born. Around that time, their exhibition entitled From Lulitun to Three Shadows opened at Three Shadows. The theme of this exhibition was a re-imagining of destruction and rebuilding.
      
In 2009, the Three Shadows Photography Award was established. The program was targeted at Chinese artists, looking towards the future, to provide young photographers with the opportunity to exhibit and interact. The Award aims to promote the healthy development of Chinese contemporary photography.
      
In April 2010, Three Shadows, together with Thinking Hands and the Les Rencontres d’Arles International Photography Festival, planned the first edition of Caochangdi PhotoSpring: Arles in Beijing. The event successfully displayed the cultural and artistic value of the Caochangdi Art Distrcit while exploring, enriching, and enhancing the position of photography as a medium in China. At the same time, Rong Rong and inri, Huang Rui, Bérénice Angremy, and François Hébel began the Protect Caochangdi Art District: A Petition to Collect 10,000 Signatures from Art Supporters Initiative. In May 2010, Compound Eye: Works by Rong Rong & inri 2000-2010, curated by Feng Boyi, opened at the He Xiangning Art Museum. This exhibition is the first time that their works from their ten years of photographic collaboration has been exhibited. Just as the exhibition title “Compound Eye” suggests, this exhibition is the true landscape of their movement from natural surroundings to society, and a multiple image of their self-reflective private space.