On the night of the Tiananmen Square massacre, a new mother witnessed the influx of casualties in the emergency room while her propaganda artist husband was in Sydney. Thirty-five years later, the couple reveal how the brutal crackdown has impacted the rest of their lives.
The portrait of Mao Zedong faces off a statue dubbed "The Goddess of Democracy" by students from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, who modeled it after the Statue of Liberty, during the student protest on Tiananmen Square in Beijing .She was born at the same time as an iconic statue in China's history – the Goddess of Democracy – at the peak of the country's biggest pro-democracy movement.
In this June 5, 1989, file photo, Chinese troops and tanks gather in Beijing, one day after the military crackdown.The hospital in which Xini’s mother Wang Lan gave birth to her was about 10 kilometres away from the square.Their unique experiences shared here for the first time provides a new perspective of the brutal crackdown on the student movement, as the generation's memory of the political turmoil is fading.
Morning commuters pedal past Chinese army tanks en route to work through Tiananmen Square, June 4, 1989. A nurse ran into the crowded ward full of new mothers and pregnant women, crying loudly after dealing with casualties."I lost my joy in having a newborn baby. I had mixed feelings. Very complicated."Ms Wang – a university teacher at the time – was soon discharged by the hospital. She still remembers the sound of a funeral song looping over the campus PA system.
He was a portrait painter at Darling Harbour in Sydney, hoping to advance his skills in a Western country.Mr Shen was a highly regarded painter, known as a propaganda artist for chairman Mao Zedong's infamous Cultural Revolution.It was printed on more than 200,000 posters, along with numerous newspapers, magazines, and journals.As the tanks rolled in and gunfire erupted, Mr Shen was desperate for news of his loved ones.
When they finally reunited, Xini was already two years old. The joy of reuniting didn't immediately cure the family's trauma of separation.It is a series of four giant paintings featuring more than 400 portraits of communists from the past 150 years. "I am not a communist… but I believe historical figures should be placed in their own context. My work neither praises nor mocks them."To millions of Chinese people, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre is a reminder of the price that young civilians paid for the freedom and human rights.
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