Dashen Zhang (b.2002), currently lives and works in London and Jinan. His work continuously explores the ontology and history of photography, using images as his primary medium while simultaneously investigating photography as a subject, connecting historical narratives and personal emotions. 

dashenzhang02@outlook.com
Instagram: @dashshenz


02. A Way to Measure the Universe

2025
Photography

Inkjet printed on paper
Variable dimensions

Man is the measure of all things, of the things that are, that they are and of things that are not, that they are not. -Protagoras

I travelled around Britain with an old lens that has a depth-of-field scale in different measurement units. Along the journey, I heard the voice of higher self, my guardian spirit. Though we had never met, I feel that it is everywhere, and it is a camera.

Laws of nature are human inventions, like spirits. Laws of logic, of mathematics are also human inventions, like spirits. The whole blessed thing is a human invention, including the idea that it isn’t a human invention. The world has no existence whatsoever outside the human imagination. It’s all a ghost, and in antiquity was so recognized as a ghost, the whole blessed world we live in. Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed. But camera, what a great thing.

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