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Photographers criticize mankind's excessive consumption

Xinhua, September 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

Luncheon meat and dairy goods decorate a bathroom, fried eggs are meticulously placed on the floor of a living room, with bananas and donuts hanging on in a candle-holder.

Global photographers have criticized the excessive consumption of mankind in a series of photos on display at the 15th Pingyao International Photography Festival (PIP) in north China's Shanxi Province.

The festival opened on Saturday attracting more than 2,100 professional and amateur photographers from 30 countries and regions, including the United States, Britain and Germany. More than 17,000 photos are displayed.

As part of this year's theme "home and dream", a special exhibition hall of the festival focuses on excessive consumption.

Booming urban economies have prompted obsessive materialism, said Sian Bonnel, a female photographer from Britain.

Driven by greed and advertisements, abundance of money is thought to be equal to excessive consumption, said Bonnel, who believes excess buying should be replaced by moderate consumption.

Pictures by Polish photographer Magdalena Borts show houses decorated with artificial mountains and coral reefs made of crochet, newspapers and jig-saw puzzles. Sitting in these incredibly natural looking houses, family members look glassy-eyed.

Manufactured nature is fictitious and fragile, said Alasdair Foster, an Australian artist who recommended the series for the event.

"No matter where we are on the Earth, in the language of advertising, a 'home' seems to be a materialistic notion," Foster said. "This is strangely at odds with the proper understanding of home."

PJ Paterson from New Zealand, criticizes contemporary consumerism in a far more frank way. Household garbage reveals a stark contrast to skyscrapers in modernized cities, and decently-dressed people fail to hide their desire to abandon the old for the new.

"Living in a well-off society, we are always in a rush to make money and splash out. We may obsessively believe this is the most vital way to show the dignity of a family," Paterson said. "This is dangerous, as it may result in less care for spiritual pursuits."

Pingyao, a city with a history of almost 3,000 years, was added to the UNESCO's world heritage list in 1997 for its well-preserved urban landscape from the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1912). Endi