6. CHRONICLE BOOKS
Mark Leong’s photographic representation of China captures the country’s transition from a traditional past toward an emerging, uncertain future. Published in Chronicle Books’ China Obscura, his images present a society on the cusp. The cover photograph—a pigtailed girl climbing a wall—serves to underscore the fact that we can’t say of what. “We don’t know if she’s climbing up or climbing down the wall,” says art director Sara Schneider. The photographic sequencing provides a visual narrative of a society both ascending and spiraling downward as modernity imposes its will. In one photograph, a small gymnast is training with Olympic aspirations in a threadbare gym. In another, a drug addict breaks heroin pods on a 100-yuan note; on the bill is the once-hallowed face of Mao Zedong.

“There’s something haunting about a society that’s disappearing and also emerging,” says Schneider, whose materials reflect the developing nature of Leong’s China. Each photograph leaves a ghostly imprint on the proceeding page, printed on a stock thinner than most collections. Titles in the front and back matter leave mirrored impressions on opposite pages, while rectangles of phantom gray surround introductions and essays.

The theme extends to the cover’s spot-varnished type treatment, which transitions from opaque to semitransparent. “Is it disappearing?” Schneider says, explaining her design intent and, simultaneously, the collection’s overarching question. “Or is it coming into focus?” Tiffany Meyers