For more than 20 years, Anaïs Martane has played an active role in Beijing’s arts and culture scene, as a photographer, theater and film producer, and singer. After arriving in the capital as a French exchange student in 2001, she returned permanently the next year, and turned her lens onto China’s underground music scene, capturing candid moments onstage and off.

In May, Martane published “They Said Who Will Listen to Your Songs,” a book containing 207 photos taken during her time with folk and indie musicians from 2001 to 2005, along with 82 contact sheets.

“We were different at first sight, but we felt the same,” she writes in the preface. “We needed no reason to laugh; we wanted only to feel our existence. That’s why it was hard for us to go home early — because being in a group, all the insecurity and loneliness would be easier to get through. Music was the core, it brought us together.”

Martane recently spoke to Sixth Tone to discuss the book and share her thoughts and memories about the “good old days” with friends and musicians.

Sixth Tone: Can you tell us about your new book?

Martane: It’s a photobook, the title of which — “They Said Who Will Listen to Your Songs” — is taken from the lyrics of “Wild Children” (originally “Yehaizi” in Chinese), a song by the band of the same name. It portrays the Beijing scene in the early 2000s and how I grew up in that environment.

The musicians then were all kind of starting out. They were playing in a small bar called River Bar, and it was a free and open scene, where independent artists could try new things and express themselves, which was unique at that time. In the past few years, many things have happened, and these artists are now famous and renowned in China. A lot of people listen to their songs.

The book is also about our relationships. We were friends, and now we have a group, The River Band. It also talks about time, of traces that still exist and those that have disappeared entirely.

Sixth Tone: What was the reason behind using those song lyrics for the title?

Martane: There are several reasons. First, it’s because this band of musicians is the subject I wanted to portray. I photographed them because I loved their music. In fact, it was more than love — my life changed after I listened to their music. Back then, I felt that if there were people like them in China, and music like this, then I could stay here and grow up with everyone here.

When I first came to Beijing from Nice in 2001, as an exchange student at Capital Normal University, I felt lonely. The school was empty because it was the winter holiday, and I had no one to talk to. And my Chinese wasn’t that good. I remember one cold winter night when I called my dad in France and cried — and he suggested I have a beer. That was the first time I ever tried beer.

It took me six months to find the underground music scene. After finally meeting some people, it was like a new world opened for me. Let me tell you how huge this was for all of us — two of my international friends were eventually married to the musicians we met; they now have children and a life here in Beijing. It was a turning point.

Another reason is that, when I began looking back at the pictures, writing, and trying to remember everything, I realized how close I had been with Zhang Quan, the lead singer of Wild Children. He’d welcomed me into this musical family, into this bar, into this life, and given me a reason to be here.

And lastly, the lyrics perfectly portray my feelings. I believe that the lyrics “They said your face is covered in dust / They said your tears are flying in the sky / They said your home is in the mountains / They said who will listen to your songs” will have resonated with young people in Beijing at that time. Some people will feel a relationship between these lines and the person they were when they first heard the song.

Sixth Tone: You write in the book that you and the musicians had a lot in common. In what ways?

Martane: Even now, when we’re together, more than 20 years later, it’s the same — we’re so close in our approaches to life, things, people, art, creation, loneliness, happiness, etc. We approach life in the same way. It’s amazing when you meet people from so far away and yet feel so similar.

In Western countries, we still talk about how we’re all so different, but we’re going to try to live together. I think this is still a very important topic in the West, but I’ve found it to be less important in China. Here, this isn’t an issue. … I didn’t feel foreignness was a deep topic — maybe my appearance when we first met, but after that, we didn’t care about differences. We only cared about what we have in common. This is something I experienced with them.

I remember how they accepted me. I was hanging around and they just welcomed me into the group. It was so natural, and they’re still like that with new people.

It’s hard for me to explain things we had in common in concrete terms, because it’s very intimate. We did a news conference for the book a few days ago, and it was awkward for us to talk about the relationships and the links because we don’t want to express that too explicitly. That’s something personal. I try to express intimate and personal feelings in my book through my pictures — soft, tender, silent images that show the musicians, what I saw in Beijing, and about me being there. I think this is important. Maybe it’s from what I learned in China about hanxu, meaning to be reserved, and it comes through in the book.

In the end, what I was pursuing was an answer to whether I could stay in China, my culture, my everything, as I’d expected a normal life. Over all these years, it wasn’t only about them — that question brought me to my husband, and to creating a family in this different culture.

It’s a journey, my journey, and I took this road with these musicians. We’re not so different, we’re pursuing the same things. What is that exactly? Hard to say. We’ll find out on the road.

Sixth Tone: Being embedded in that group of musicians, rather than an external observer, did that influence the process of selecting photos for the book?

Martane: In creating this book, I received support from a photography company, which helped me scan all my films, as I mainly specialize in analog photography. Because of that, I could see all my pictures really well, and discovered many images that I didn’t know that well before.

I think our aesthetic has changed in the past 25 years, so we made choices based on what we want the book to be, focusing on normal daily life. We absolutely didn’t want to refer to some aesthetic, classic rules. These pictures are really interesting, as they were shot while I was still learning photography. The editing helped us create something that’s coherent. It’s a pity when images are used individually; we always need more. One beautiful picture doesn’t mean anything to me. But if it’s a part of an ensemble, a coherent thing, then that would be the work.

At that time, I would offer these pictures I’d shot to everyone. If there was a portrait of Zhang Weiwei (Editor’s note: folk musician and member of Wild Children), I’d develop it and give it to him. Aside from portraits, photos were mostly taken in people’s homes.

I cared about their feedback. I wanted only to share beautiful images of them. I put some contact sheets at the end of the book, but that’s more to put across the true atmosphere at River Bar, as people are curious about it. But I prefer to share only nice images.

Sixth Tone: What did you find appealing about the indie musicians that you photographed, and why choose them rather than other subjects?

Martane: It was kind of fate that I met the Wild Children in June 2001. When my friend and I listened to their songs, it was like a shock. We could somehow recognize the music, but it was also totally new.

In France, back then, we listened to a lot of world music; tunes from Africa and Eastern Europe. Wild Children’s songs were part of this discovery, but it was new and huge. One of my friends even wrote her dissertation on Wild Children, their music and their stories.

All of the band members were adorable, welcoming, and free people — not at all judgmental. The first time we went to River Bar and watched them perform, we hung out with them outside, talking and playing the guitar. I remember at the time that sunrise in Beijing arrived at 4 a.m., and the topic switched directly to: “OK, let’s go get breakfast.”

We took a bus and went far out to somewhere in the suburbs. We had soy milk and a local breakfast. For this French girl, everything was new and amazing. You feel like you’re in a National Geographic topic. We’d just met them, but they invited us to stay, to have breakfast, and showed us their home. This welcoming, easygoing, and relaxing nature was unique.

So it was everything — the attraction of the music, and the discovery of China’s values embodied in the music and these young artists.

Sixth Tone: The book leaves readers with a sense of nostalgia. Do you feel that Beijing and its people have changed in the past few years?

Martane: Of course, Beijing has changed a lot. But mainly I’ve changed. I’m not the same age, and I have family and children now, so I want to pursue who I am by encountering new people and new things. Sometimes I’ll say there’s no more this or that in Beijing, but it’s a generational thing.

Sometimes I have this feeling of the “good old days,” but I feel we’re writing new stories every day, we’re creating “good new days.” For sure, the time recorded in the book was special because we were young, and it was a moment of self-creation. But I think we’re still doing that.

I often imagine that, when I’m 80, I’ll reminisce about when I was 40 or 50, thinking it was so cool. I don’t always think about the past, as enjoying the present is the most important. I’ve created a book and printed “the past” on paper, getting it out of me so that I can say, “OK, let’s continue the good old days.” And yes, they are continuing.

Additional reporting: Wu Huiyuan; contributions: Zhu Mo; visuals: Ding Yining; editor: Hao Qibao.

(Header image: River Bar, Beijing, January 2003. Courtesy of Anaïs Martane)