Ficciones is Chinese artist Sun Yanchu's altered-photograph project, which won the inaugural Gucang Dummy Book Award, selected by Martin Parr, in 2015.
The book gathers anonymous photographs Sun found in antique markets across China: snapshots of family gatherings, travel, and daily life from the 1970s and 1980s. Working directly on the found prints with collage, drawing, gold leaf, and paint, he obscures faces and layers in fragments of contemporary news, blurring the line between the photographs' original documentary content and his own invented narratives. Published by Jiazazhi Press in Ningbo in August 2016, the book is hardcover and spiral-bound, 112 pages, 18 × 23 × 3 cm, in a first edition of 500 copies, with text in Chinese and English.
Sun Yanchu (b. 1978, Zhoukou, Henan Province) lives and works in Zhengzhou, working by hand on found and self-made photographs. His awards include the Lianzhou International Photo Festival New Photography Award (2011) and the Jinan International Photo Biennale Best Photographer Award (2012) a related series, Developer Paintings, applies darkroom chemistry and brushwork directly to photographic paper. Ficciones followed Obsessed, Sun's 2011 debut with Jiazazhi Press.
Details
Year
2016
ISBN
—
Format
Hardcover, spiral-bound
Pages
112
Dimensions
23cm × 18cm × 3cm
Language
Chinese and English
Edition
First edition, 500 copies
Notes
No dedicated official artist website found for Sun Yanchu authors[0].url uses his representing gallery (M97 Gallery, Shanghai) as the best available link per edge-case guidance, since no official_site exists. Chinese title: 虚构集. Book is a small-press, limited-edition (500 copies) title from Jiazazhi Press, an independent Chinese photography publisher no ISBN was found in any source consulted and it appears the title predates/lacks ISBN registration (common for small-press art-book editions of this size) — left null rather than guessed. Jiazazhi's own product page for this title could not be located live on jiazazhistore.com (likely delisted, as the edition is sold out everywhere checked) core facts (publisher, year, page count, dimensions, edition size, award) were cross-confirmed across photo-eye, Dashwood Books, and moom bookshop (Taiwan), which agree exactly, so confidence is high despite the publisher's own product page being unreachable. weight_g, designer, and editor were not stated in any source. Collage collection archiving, July 2026. Accessioned 2026-07-29.
