Profiles

Aging Differently: Gao Rongguo’s Twins

Confucius said:

At 15 I set my heart on learning;
At 30 I took my stand;
At 40 I no longer had doubts;
At 50 I knew the will of the heavens;
At 60 my ear was attuned;
At 70 I follow all the desires of my heart without breaking any rule.

Centuries later, the Chinese philosopher’s words are still being debated, and while many people age 70-plus will recognize the meaning of “follow all my desires,” 50- and 60-year-olds might wonder what “knew the will of heaven” means. Some say it means you’ve accepted your destiny; others, that you’ve come to understand what your life’s about.

Beijing-based artist Gao Rongguo doesn’t believe in destiny – at least, not star-driven destiny. According to a statement on his website, Rongguo decided to photograph sets of older twins in China’s Shandong province as a comment on astrology. Having grown up around several sets of twins, the artist – now 30 and, according to Confucius, taking his stand – could see that temperament and life’s vicissitudes are what determine who we’ll be. And how we age.

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Rongguo sought out sets of twins over age 50 – twins who, as he says in his artist statement, “used to have the same face, living in the same family, but their lives changed due to various reasons.”

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He chose to photograph twins who had reached the half-century mark – who know their fate or what their life’s about. “I take these identical twins in their 50s face to face” as in a mirror, so that each person reveals the gains and losses in their twin.

The photographs lead us to wonder: If not just genes, then how do resilience and determination, along with luck, determine how we’ll age – and for how long we’ll live.

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To see more photographs in this powerful series of 12 twin portraits, visit Gao Rongguo’s website. Click on each image to see it full size.

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