Xiaoxiao Xu: Aeronautics in the Backyard

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Aug 14, 2018 - Nov 13, 2018

Xiaoxiao Xu: Aeronautics in the Backyard

In 2015, artist and photographer Xiaoxiao Xu travelled throughout inner-mainland China and documented the little-known, yet thriving subculture of homebuilt aircraft builders in rural areas across the country. The country is certainly a global player and innovator in the field of aviation, though Xu’s story takes place outside of the major cities where much of this innovation occurs. She draws focus on an underground culture of aircraft builders who are self-taught engineers, often working with modest budgets and limited access to materials. Drawn by the urge to fly, they build airplanes and gyrocopters in backyard workshops, utilizing hand-drawn schematics, generic tools, and retrofitted motors.

Working with a Hasselblad film camera, Xu documents these aeronauts and their flying machines—many of which are flown regularly by their industrious operators. Other machines remain incapable of continuous flight or grounded by inadequate design. Her subjects may lack the experience and resources of those who work in the aerospace industry, but they compensate with ingenuity and relentless perseverance in their efforts to achieve flight. In this sense, Xu’s images move beyond straight-forward documentation of experimental aircraft builders in rural China and meditate on more universal themes of human ambition and resourcefulness.

Originally from Wenzhou, a city in southern China, Xiaoxiao Xu immigrated to the Netherlands with her family as a teenager in 1999. In 2009, she graduated from The Photo Academy in Amsterdam and has since exhibited widely, with recent exhibitions in France, China, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Portugal, India, Guatemala, Greece, England, and the United States. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including China Daily, Vice, Wired, TIME, BBC, The Guardian, Hyperallergic, and The Wall Street Journal. Xu has recieved numerous awards and grants, including a Lucie Foundation Scholarship, a documentary photography grant from the Amsterdam City Archives, and a Mondriaan Fund award. Her fourth book, Aeronautics in the Backyard, was published by The Eriskay Connection in 2016.

Yuan Xiangqiu holds a model airplane his son made in Tiantai, Zhejiang Province 2015

A farmer watching aircraft flying in the sky 2015

Birdcage in Zhang Dousan’s backyard 2015

Zhang Dousan works in construction and works on Dousan No. 5 in his spare time—he has spent three years and more than $70,000 working on this coaxial-type helicopter 2015

Aviator He Dongbiao owns a company called Galaxy Helicopters which sells DIY helicopter kits 2015

Damaged airplane bodies are kept in storage at Su Guibin’s factory 2015

He Dongbiao sits inside his helicopter Low Altitude Free Man, which utilizes an MZ202 aeromotor. It took him one year to construct and flies as high as 1,300 feet 2015

Wang Qiang refits the engine for his airplane in his backyard in Cixi, Zhejiang Province 2015

Wang Qiang’s son plays with a toy airplane 2015

Industrial area where Wang Qiang often takes his airplane for test flights 2015

Jin Shaozhi shows off the Sky Horse, a fixed-wing aircraft with a steel frame, aluminum tubing, and a Rotax 447 motor 2015

The city where Yuan Xiangqiu lives is undergoing major development 2015

Wang Qiang sits inside the Wang Qiang No.2, a fixed-wing aircraft that uses a Yamaha engine from a boat. He spent approximately four months and $5,000 to construct the aircraft, which can reach an altitude of nearly 5,000 feet 2015

Yuan Xiangqiu gazes out the window of his home in Tiantai, Zhejiang province. The 65-year-old said he was inspired to build a plane the first time he saw one on television. "I can teach myself to be a carpenter, and I can make a rice thresher, so I can surely build an airplane too," he remembers thinking 2015

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