![\"Garde](\"https:\/\/www.solange-brand.com\/wp-clean\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/solange-brand-1966-revolution-culturelle-19-1-681x1024.jpg\" "\\"History\\"")
The Cultural Revolution<\/h2>\nIn November 1965, when Solange Brand arrived in Beijing to work as a secretary at the French Embassy, China was cut off from the world and few foreign visitors\u2014let alone Westerners\u2014were allowed in.\n\nInspired by this captivating foreign land while she wandered the streets of the city, Brand acquired a Pentax camera in Hong Kong and began taking pictures as a personal record. Little did Brand know that she was witnessing what would become a major event in Chinese history.
\n\nThe Cultural Revolution broke out in the spring of 1966. Brand saw the madness gradually taking hold in the streets. Rural youths moved en masse to cities, replacing urban students who were sent out the country. The initial joy and hope gave way to chaos, clashes, persecutions, humiliations, lynch mobs and executions. Over the course of the Cultural Revolution, tens of millions of victims.
\n\nA consequence of Mao Zedong\u2019s plans to regain power and the social crisis caused by the Great Leap Forward, this period of history\u2014\u201cthe ten dark years\u201d from 1966 to 1976\u2014has yet to find its real place in the official Chinese discourse, while painful memories of the event are often repressed by the victims themselves.
\n\nBrand\u2019s photographs do not show the Cultural Revolution\u2019s dark side and horrors. \u00ab I didn\u2019t witness them, she emphasizes, the full reality only became tangible later, once I returned to France. As with all pictures, my images depict only a fragment of reality and only take on meaning through their captions and replaced in their context. \u00bb
\n\nA personal vision rather than a journalistic one, these photographs are a valuable document of the era, of which few color photographs exist apart from official propaganda.
\n\nIn 2022, an acquisition of nine photographs was made by the Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France for their permanent collection.
\n\nIn 2025, Solange Brand will begin donating her photographic collection to the Mediath\u00e8que du Patrimoine et de la Photographie (MPP) under the Ministry of Culture, ensuring its preservation for the future.
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"