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“I’m telling you here a story about these left behind children, and about these phantoms that everyone has forgotten.”

Chinese photographer JT grew up in southern China in the 1980s and witnessed the shocking effects of China's one-child policy. Later, during his travels throughout China, he came into contact with children whose lives had been shaped by the one-child policy, ostracized from society and often unable to apply for welfare or health care.
His photo book "Wild Grass" documents the lives of these children in official and unofficial orphanages across China. Due to a lack of funding and expertise, many of them do not receive the care they need. JT lived and spent time with them, trying to understand their world as best he could. While the photographs in "Wild Grass" do not shy away from the reality of their situation, JT has managed to capture and portray their lives with interest and dignity. The book is kept unusually dark, literally, with some photographs only really visible when viewed from the right angle, and occasional pages kept completely black.

“[T]heir lives have already been scripted by their circumstances: harsh living conditions, an unclear future, and hence existing like ‘forgotten phantoms.’ Labels that we give to them, such as ‘misery’ and ‘suffering,’ may be interpretations based on mainstream values through a humanitarian filter. Yet, when we look at the world through the lens of tamed rationality, we seem to forget that for these children caught in their own situations, being outside of mainstream society may be tantamount to not having a social frame of reference. Without such a frame of reference, they might be sheltered from some of the pain caused by a larger system and continue to thrive like wild grass.”
― from JT’s afterword

For more information, we recommend this video by Photography in China.