Zhuang Hui is from Luoyang in Henan Province, a city that is the birthplace of most Chinese photographers. A tradition regarding himself, however, which has come to an end with his father and elder brother. In the most vivid memories of the artist it is precisely his father's profession, an itinerant photographer during the period prior to the "Liberation" (1949) who subsequently became a salaried worker in photographic studio in the remote center of Yumen, on the Silk Route, where he had voluntarily gone into exile with his family in order to avoid a bureaucratic post offered by the newly installed Communist Party.

The subjects of Zhuang's photographs had originally been the rich landowners who had their portraits taken either singularly or with the family clan, They were subsequently replaced by the common people who during the most 'fervent' periods of the history of the new People's Republic testified to the events decreed by the Party - such as the "occupation of the country side" with the help of photography. The small Hui used to go around with his father, with curiosity and trepidation overseeing all of the movements carried out by his parent: such as when he disappeared under a piece of black cloth together with a folding (bellows) camera and, after a couple of days, produced the images of the persons photographed, as if by magic. The premature death of his father, when Hui was only 7yrs old, brusquely interrupted when father - son relationship., Photography, however, continued to subtly fascinate the child, giving rise to painful memories, His father's old studio, which from being a "state" one is now privatized, was recently reacquired by the artist's brother in this way returning to the family.

- by Zhang Hui