Xiao Yang

I’ve never been a fan of brutalism, probably because I’ve grown up in a country that has lots of buildings from this era. I’ve never found brutalist architecture particularly photogenic either. But then, I saw photos taken by Xiao Yang and they changed my mind.

This Chinese photographer has traveled the world searching for abandoned places to photograph. Her journeys have brought her to the Balkans, where you’ll find lots of massive concrete monuments, mostly built in the 1960s and 1970s. Using long exposures and light painting, Xiao has managed to turn these abandoned monuments into magnificent giants you’ll want to visit right now.