Founder of HoSZ Is Featured in The New York Times

New York, NY,  March 28th, 2025 —  Albert Z. Wang, founder of Humans of Shenzhen, was featured in New York Times for his photo essay on Shenzhen's Yulv Village, an urban-village community of migrant workers. Based on extensive fieldwork and interviews, the photo essay interwove the voices of five villagers with a deeper exploration of the neighborhood's unique social, cultural, and economic dynamics. Although caught between the pressures of their rural past and urban future, villagers built a world of connection, survival, and resilience against the odds.

Albert was awarded Honorable Mention in New York Times "Where We Are" Photo Essay Contest, which invites contestants to "document the local, offline communities" of importance to them. With his photo essay "At Yulv, Urban Villagers Create Another World," Albert joined more than 600 students globally who each interviewed and photographed a community of their choice.

The judges "were...impressed." They "saw promise in [Albert's] work, whether it was [his] photographs, [his] writing or the way [he] wove those pieces together to tell a compelling story about [the Yulv] community."