Until Death Do Us Part

“Until Death Do Us Part” focuses on the unexpected role cigarettes play in Chinese weddings. As a token of appreciation, it is customary for the bride to light a cigarette for each and every man invited. The bride and the groom are then invited to play some cigarette-smoking games of an unprecedented ingenuousness. This publication pays homage to a tradition in which love and death walk hand in hand.

These photos come from the Beijing Silvermine project, an archive of 850 000 negatives salvaged over the years from a recycling plant on the edge of Beijing.