Navigating the Labyrinth: Daniel Winslade’s Shenzhen Journey in Kingdom of Grain

I find cities intriguing for the ambiguity they present to wanderers. A city that’s lived long enough and become big enough to accommodate humanity in its various shades presents a unique challenge to a new resident as to its identity, at once distinct in close quarters, and diverse across pockets but invariably and maddeningly amorphous from afar, like looking through air uniformly stirred with grain floating in unison, reducing everything to the same texture.

So, when I received Kingdom of Grain, a journey through Shenzhen by Daniel Winslade, I was intrigued by the possibilities Daniel saw in Shenzhen as a new resident. It’s easy to be subsumed by a big city, finding safety not so much in numbers as in falling in step with its mores, becoming one among the many. 

However, the tension that results in visual journeys comes not from conformance but in the conflict between where you came from, what you’re going through within, and how both adapt to a new place. 

Daniel arrived in Shenzhen at a time in his life when Western society was newly consumed by issues around identity, a thought that Daniel, in an insightful conversation I had with him, says was prevalent within himself.

In our conversation, Daniel traverses effortlessly between his relationship with self as he went about exploring his relationship with Shenzhen, one sojourn at a time. He speaks about illusion and reality in their own contexts and in the frame of a photograph, and beyond.

Kingdom of Grain switches between latent memories, a sense of loss, and longing, and the reality of the present in an intriguing series of thoughts and visuals, drawing a thread through seemingly disconnected frames of reference but joined together by a sense of exploration of the city, and within.

Welcoming Daniel Winslade ringside. 

Interview with Daniel Winslade

Anil Purohit: Daniel, welcome to ephemere. and congratulations on your publication Kingdom of Grain, an evocative journey through the cityscape of Shenzhen exploring “themes of isolation, the search for identity, and the haunting beauty of urban decay, all set against the backdrop of a city that never sleeps.” How did this project come about?

Daniel Winslade: This particular work came about quite naturally. I hadn't picked up my camera for a good year beforehand and when I got to Shenzhen I really just wanted to make something. So I just started photographing and the intricacies, themes, and plot developed alongside the photos, it was definitely a snowball effect.

Anil: The title Kingdom of Grain is intriguing in the sense it seems to devolve objective realities of the city into a diffused kaleidoscope of meanings, some fractured, others alluded to, and yet others served up upfront.

You speak of “introspective narratives”. In what way did Shenzhen evoke and centre your approach toward bringing Kingdom of Grain to life?   

Daniel: In most ways the work is my reaction to the city. For me the city dictated how I was going to express this narrative within myself. Shenzhen is a large, fast paced metropolis. It's bright and shiny,  consistent and safe and I arrived at a time in my life where identity was a prevalent thought, within myself and in western society as a whole. It's that relationship between time and place that the work is made.

Anil: Elsewhere you maintain, “The lost generation had jazz, the beats had the road, in the 60s there was the acid boom. My generation seemed wrapped in hauntology, constantly recycling trends of the past.” 

Big cities are often home to diffused identities, uncertain attachments to rootless habitations, and abound in temporary connections in transitory relationships. 

Do you see this as a factor in the “generation” seeking the certainties of the past by way of cultural markers like music, films, and social conduct among other things that speak of centred identities, distinct to geographies, and unique to their time?  

Daniel: I see it as a factor in the sense that these cultural markers have, at least it seemed at the time, become something to look back on. But I did not see Shezhen as a home to diffused identities or transitory relationships, I found in Shenzhen a culture of conformity and compliance. 

Anil: In cities that never sleep, movement is a constant, even when at rest. How has this influenced how you see life navigating the city, and if this has contributed to your generation’s “recycling trends of the past.”?

Daniel: Well movement certainly was constant when I was in Shenzhen. There is no avoiding it when navigating the city, it is the lifestyle. When you filter the world through a city like that, at least I found, you can't help but go through extreme periods of high energy followed by equally tired periods.

Anil: You credit the work of Daido Moriyama and Robert Frank with opening your “eyes to the magic of photography” in college.

While both chronicled a strain of urban tension in their work, do you see a visual spectrum that simultaneously separates and distinguishes the works of both and has it informed your own photographic practice and in creating Kingdom of Grain?

Daniel: I think I understand what you mean by spectrum and yes I do think it has influenced me greatly, especially with Kingdom. Conceptually, for me, their work has always been a key to the subconscious, maybe not as a true insight but one that is at least a reflection. 

Anil: You’ve said “pure accuracy of the photo is an illusion, creating an impression rather than a window to the past.”

While a photo serves up an objective reality with matter-of-fact details, does the illusion you mention derive from the interpretation the viewer makes about the meaning the frame conveys to them?

Daniel: Yes for the most part I mean it like that. But in another sense I don't know if I'm convinced a photo serves up an objective reality. I feel that every difference in light, angle, pose - every decision a photographer makes in the time they make it and in the context of that time is too influential to portray reality, especially on a 2d surface. 

Anil: Do you see illusion as a pathway to objective reality, where the visual illusion within the frame speaks of a reality outside of it?

Daniel: Within photography, I see objective reality as a tool to tell a story. 

Anil: A sense of anonymity pervades the project; while people are visible, they seem to be inscrutable in the purpose that animates their existence, in a ‘being there and yet nowhere’ kind of way. Among strangers in the mix, the connections begin and end in the duration of the connection, barely extending beyond, occasionally centred by music, and memories. 

When you say “My generation seemed wrapped in hauntology, constantly recycling trends of the past,” the push to reach back to the familiar in part is driven by the anonymity in the present?

Daniel: In part yes. But for the most part I wrote that as an expression of an anxious thought, that I couldn't relate to the present that it didn't really meet my expectations, like how I imagine the 60s did for the hippies or the 50s were to the beats. It's all about perspective, and how I needed to change that before anything else.    

Anil: What does your book Kingdom of Grain mean to you personally, in your journey through life?

Daniel: It is a journal for me, I can go back to that book and reflect on those feelings and ideas of that time and place and take myself back there, remind myself of the lessons learned and conclusions I came to.

Anil: Growing up you came to develop a great love for cinema, the screen a zone of comfort that in hindsight you felt was a “distraction to avoid the real world.” 

Which films left an impression on you that you could consider to have played a part in your thought process driving your work?

Daniel: Well it's funny I don't really see films as a huge influence on my work, consciously that is. Books are more the obvious influence for me. Having said that Charlie Kaufmans stuff has always left me inspired to make stuff and Denis villenueva's Enemy is a fantastic story that I keep coming back to. 

Anil: Do you see distraction and illusion interchangeably or are they distinct in application in your book?

Daniel: I wouldn't say I use distraction as an application in my work, at least not deliberately. I do however try not to worry about meaning and narrative while I'm photographing, I prefer that stuff to come about in the edit. 

Anil: Do you consciously seek visual structures that exist materially but are constructed in a way that leads the viewer into misconstruing their actual nature, creating an illusion as to their actual purport, imbuing them with a sense of the unknown and the unknowable, in the manner of ‘the night is certain, but the darkness is fluid’? 

Daniel: Yes, but I also want to be surprised sometimes too. A lot of the photos in the book came about in the edit, I was surprised that most of them are not the shots I spent the most time fretting over in camera.

Anil: You’ve stepped into a MMA ring “to embrace the intensity of a real fight [to face your fears],” and speak of Shenzhen offering “a comfort so pacifying it seemed the city was devoid of discomfort and fear”. 

You’ve found yourself “stuck in a limbo between comfort and fear [when making these photos]”, and said “I found myself in need of fear, a notion I couldn’t fathom beforehand”. 

‘Fear’ reoccurs as an intangible motif in your thoughts. Please comment.

Daniel: I've found fear as the answer so many different times in my life, and it's come in many different forms. In the past I avoided the feeling of fear like the plague. Now I use it as a compass, and I'm acutely aware of when it is not present and that is the thing I now avoid.

Anil: Between stepping into the MMA ring to face your fears, and experiencing a “natural inclination to avoid fear and take the safe path to put my head down and conform to the ease and safety of city life [Shenzhen],” when out making these photos, you share a contradictory feeling toward fear. 

Is this ambivalence toward fear at play in Kingdom of Grain where Leo lowers the mirror and says “Choose fear, be free.”? 

Daniel: Yes, of course. The duality of fear, for me, is the core of the book.

Anil:  The narrative switches between text and visuals, between a seeming present and a distant past, interspersed with thoughts, and laments. Posing questions, and delivering prompts without seeking answers or reflections. A static on the move so to speak.

Did this approach evolve organically as a conversation between the images and thoughts, each germinating the other while advancing them both cyclically?

Daniel: I started writing about halfway through the project. During the first Covid lockdown, I was definitely missing photography. Writing seemed to quench that thirst and then I realized what I was writing was what I couldn't photograph. I started putting the images together and it evolved quite naturally.

Anil: As your interpretation of Shenzhen, has your book answered your ‘questions’ beyond the city as a metaphor for life, or has it given rise to more?

Daniel: Ahah, much more!  I'd say every question answered created 5 more. And even the answer questions aren't very satisfactory.

Anil: Where do you go next from Kingdom of Grain?

Daniel:  Well I'm concentrating on my portrait practice, I hope to have an exhibition of portraits at the end of the year. As for a narrative-based project, I'm sure an idea will come when the time is right.

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