Beijing’s 10 Most Interesting People 2014: Thomas Sauvin

The year is drawing to a close, and once again we wanted to look at the people who are helping to shape our lives here in Beijing. So we looked at the artists, the chefs, the entrepreneurs, and a whole lot of other people who are making their mark on the city – and on us and our lifestyle – and put together this look at 10 individuals who are giving it their all. Each one of them is a true Beijinger, regardless of the length of their stay: creative, determined, and hard-working.

Thomas Sauvin
Photography Collector
Photographers are generally known for the images they make with their own equipment. But Thomas Sauvin can instead present to the world hundreds of thousands of images of a bygone era of China’s early reform and development.

Sauvin’s Silvermine Project, which has been featured in publications including The New Yorker and Time, was the result of his acquiring, conserving, and curating color negatives from unknown photographers that were due to be destroyed. The images cover about 20 years, from 1985-2005, from when color film first became widely available in China, to the dawn of digital.

The photographs printed from the negatives are stunning, showing a country just beginning to move away from the Mao suit as fashion, when bicycles ruled the streets, and families first began to experience anything approaching private ownership or wealth.

Sauvin’s work may be referred to as Silvermine, but its value to future generations of historians and photographers is pure gold.

More stories by this author here.

Email: danielkippwhittaker@thebeijinger.com

Photo: Courtesy of Thomas Sauvin