Xiaopeng Yuan spends his days living and working in Shanghai, splitting much of his time between taking photos and importing books.
The 33-year-old is the cofounder of Same Paper, a self-publishing book and photography studio that started as a blog to share Xiaopeng and his friends’ favorite magazines and books in 2013.
“I began with a partner of mine, and most of my work was editing at the time,” he says.
Inside the pages of “Closing Ceremony.” Photo courtesy of Xiaopeng Yuan
The studio established photography magazine CLOSING CEREMONY in 2017, and Issue 02 was released in 2019.
“It’s such an honor to have every featured photographer/artist and writer here in this second issue,” Xiaopeng said on Instagram.
Same Paper also has an online bookstore, carrying books from publishers and photographers from all over the world. Besides publishing, Same Paper curates events and exhibitions.
The second issue of CLOSING CEREMONY invited more than 10 US-based photographers to share their work with photos and writing on topics like gender, politics, class, and consumption. Contributing photographers include Buck Ellison, Charlie Engman, Chris Maggio, Eva O’Leary, Gregory Halpern, and more.
“By reconstructing and visualizing the minor details of daily life, setting them in a bright and clear lighting, these photographers create a new order in which the realness and fiction is hard to distinguish. Through the images their voices can be heard among the chaos America is going through,” reads the description at samepaper.com.
Xiaopeng studied fine art and painting at the Jiangxi Normal University of Fine Arts.
A version of this article originally appeared in Sixtysix Issue 05 with the headline “Xiaopeng Yuan: Publisher, Shanghai, China.” Subscribe today.
