China News Service, Guiyang, September 25th. Title: Guizhou: Using light and shadow narrative to draw a picture of sojourn in the mountains.
——The sojourn narrative of the 19th China Original Ecology International Photography Exhibition
In the golden autumn, guests are welcomed, and Qiangui displays scrolls. 2026 Colorful Guizhou·The 19th China Original Ecology International Photography Exhibition will kick off on September 28 in Hongjiang Village, Libo County, Qiannan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture.
Nearly a thousand video works from the six major sections of "Culture, Tourism, Sports, Medicine, Business, and Communication" selected for the exhibition are no longer just "sceneries" of Guizhou's great rivers and mountains, but also an "observation post" of the profound changes in Guizhou's cultural tourism industry. Through the images, we can clearly feel that Guizhou is closely following the three core elements of resources, tourists and services to promote a steady leap in tourism from "check-in for sightseeing" to "in-depth residence". The brand connotation of "Living in Guizhou, life is more colorful" is becoming concrete and clear.
Exhibition Perspective: From “Recording Scenery” to “Focusing on Fireworks”
Tourism and residence correspond to different groups of people and needs. Tourists have a tight itinerary and seek to "see"; sojourners pursue dwelling and long to "integrate". The images in the exhibition not only record the scenery, but also extend a sincere invitation to travel to Guizhou to guests from different circles.
The six major sections of the main exhibition constitute a "panoramic picture of living in Guizhou" that the exhibition carefully depicts for the public: the Anshun Highland Opera and the Danzhai Kara Bird Cage carry a vivid cultural context; the shouts of the "Village BA" stadium and the thrill of skydiving from the High Bridge , showing the vitality of sports; the dense water vapor of Jianhe Hot Spring and the refreshing fragrance of Yaoshan Ancient Village’s medicine shop highlight the health background; the noisy Qingyun Market and the majestic Huajiang Canyon Bridge highlight the charm of the city’s fireworks and the new infrastructure construction...
Landscapes are the skeleton, and fireworks are the flesh and blood. The works in this exhibition no longer simply pursue a "blockbuster feel", but focus on the photographer's unique perspective when walking into streets, night markets, and B&Bs. This "extension" of perspective reflects the "focus" of Guizhou's cultural tourism resources view. Those seemingly ordinary streets, B&Bs, snacks, and drinks are no longer just accompaniments to the scenery, but have become core travel resources that attract visitors from afar to stop. What Guizhou shows to the outside world is not only beautiful landscape paintings, but also a complete set of guides for mountain life and travel.
Narrative of light and shadow: from "touring Guizhou" to "living in Guizhou"
Tourism and sojourn correspond to completely different crowd portraits and consumption logics. Tourists have a tight itinerary and seek to "see"; sojourners pursue dwelling and long to "integrate". Faced with the iteration of mass tourism demand, Guizhou is using this exhibition to send sincere invitations to different groups of tourists and present a scene that is more suitable for travel and more livable.
From the works in the exhibition, we can see the broad boundaries of the customer base: the Anshun Tunpu people and the Duyun Night Market captured by overseas photographers show the increasingly international appeal of living in Guizhou; the scenes of the interaction between people and technology at the Digital Expo and the carnival scenes of young people at the music festival show that the structure of the customer base is expanding. Among them, there are middle-aged and elderly people recuperating from the summer, "digital nomads" seeking inspiration, families eager for local experience, and foreign faces who come to explore "what China is like."
In order to welcome these new customer groups, this exhibition has once again made breakthroughs in planning: it has launched the "I Live in Guizhou" AI image co-creation experience, allowing tourists to transform from bystanders into the protagonists of the story of living in Guizhou; "Silk Road Together" - Central Asian Image Invitational Exhibition, inviting photography institutions from four Central Asian countries to participate in the exhibition; selected works of this exhibition will be toured in Kyrgyzstan and carried out exchange activities. From "inviting photographers from all over the world to take photos of Guizhou" to "going out for dialogue with images of Guizhou", the exhibition is taking a more calm and confident attitude to expand the customer base for the Guizhou travel brand.
Value pursuit: from “disseminating culture” to “empowering cultural tourism”
In the era of travel, the goal of services is no longer just to meet tourists' needs for food, accommodation, travel, shopping and entertainment, but to "create a living scene that can be stayed for a long time." This point has been explored by Dazhan and has been vividly confirmed in practice.
Looking back in 2025, the exhibition will be held in Jiuzhou Town, Anshun City. The exhibition not only brought unprecedented cultural dissemination to the ancient town, but the carefully crafted land art installations also stayed in the local area permanently after the exhibition, becoming a highly recognizable iconic cultural symbol of the ancient town. This is the "reshaping power" brought by the exhibition as a cultural IP - it is not only a short-term traffic carnival, but also a humanistic landmark on Guizhou's travel map, continuing to empower the high-quality development of cultural tourism.
"It is obvious that the cultural businesses in our town have become richer this year, the ancient town is becoming more and more beautiful, and there are more and more tourists from outside the province." Zhu Guangmo, president of the Anshun Jiuzhou Ancient Town Tourism Association, said when talking about the changes in the ancient town.
Today, this empowerment continues.
The upcoming exhibition will be held in Hongjiang Village. It will adopt the "image + land art" model and scatter the exhibition in courtyards, streets and fields to create an "image exhibition without walls." This is not only a breakthrough in the exhibition format, but also an attitude expressed by the exhibition: the sojourn scene is integrated into the countryside, and the second half of the article on industrial development must rely on local life to create a better experience.
During the exhibition, the cultural tourism industry will be supported, the market mechanism will be explored, and the construction of a "five-party joint construction, sharing and win-win" operating system of the government, cultural tourism enterprises, resident artists, village collective economic organizations, and villagers will be actively explored; a VR panoramic digital exhibition hall will be constructed simultaneously to create a "never-ending cloud image exhibition." The exhibition does not engage in a one-time deal of "holding an exhibition at one time", but is committed to leapfrogging from "holding a one-time exhibition" to "building an ecology", doing a solid job in deepening the tourism industry in Guizhou, and providing reference ideas for the development of cultural tourism in Guizhou and even similar regions in the country.
Since its inception in 2008, the Colorful Guizhou·China Original Ecology International Photography Exhibition has gone through nineteen years. There is a theme every year, from national customs, landscapes, flying bridges, four major cultures, to this year’s Guizhou travels, the exhibition always resonates with the development of Guizhou.
Landscapes serve as the curtain, and fireworks serve as the prelude.
The image feast of Hongjiang Village is about to begin. At that time, the public will stroll on this vibrant land, interact with the exhibition as the protagonist, and truly integrate into the meticulous daily fireworks. Guizhou’s latest achievements in building a first-class tourist destination will bloom brilliantly in the light and shadow here.
