Cross-cultural photography competition breaks down barriers

Can routine everyday moments become art? Can photos break down cultural barriers? 

These are the questions posed by the latest annual UK-China photography competition, held by the University of Manchester and China's Yunnan University. Now in its sixth year, the competition, this year with the theme "Daily Ritual," attracted hundreds of entrants from across China and the UK.

‌"The goal of the photography competition is to help ordinary Chinese and ordinary Britons see themselves in the eyes of each other," Professor Peter Gries tells CGTN Europe. The director of Manchester University's Manchester-China Institute, Gries has overseen this year's event.

Among 30 highly commended photographs, there were two overall winners, one from China and one from the UK. The winner from China, Love in a Small Town, shows a street cleaner working under the image of an umbrella. It was submitted by Hongwei Zhang, who said he was incredibly excited and delighted by his win.

The winning picture from the UK, Cold Water Plunge by Emmarae Chambers from Liverpool, shows a group of women entering the murky waters of the Mersey for cold-water swimming.

"I followed a group of ladies just after lockdown who found that cold-water swimming helped with their mental health and also with a lot of other health issues," explained Chambers. "They built friendships and relationships, meeting for meditation sessions and bringing their children to help them with their issues arising from lockdown. It was a brilliant community made from complete strangers."

"We're all linked," Chambers told CGTN Europe. "Everybody needs that little community to be together to say how they're feeling, it doesn't matter where you're from, how rich or how poor, you still need that little group of people."

‌Organizers say the competition is part of continuing efforts to integrate Manchester's nearly 9,000 Chinese students into UK life.

"We tend to hear of conflict and clashes between China and the UK, and the focus in the day-to-day is on difference," said Gries. "It's this framework that over-emphasises differences, which I believe is dangerous, so we need to be reminded of our common humanity - and I believe these pictures do just that."

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