Muted Ember: Yue Sun's Large-Format Portrait of Industrial Decline

Yue Sun's project 'Muted Ember' documents Wuhai, a coal city in inner Mongolia built from near-nothing after 1949 that now faces economic decline as coal reserves deplete. Shot over two years on a large-format camera across the city's outskirts, the work photographs the landscape and young residents suspended between staying and leaving. Sun's own words anchor the project: a frame of 14-year-olds in fake Prada smoking outside captures the tension between performed toughness and real vulnerability.