Liu Zheng was born in Wuqiang Province, China in 1969 and grew up in a mining district of Shanxi Province. He studied in the Engineering and Optics Department of the Beijing Institute of Technology, and in 1995 co-founded the journal New Photography. Between 1994 and 2001 Liu Zheng traveled extensively throughout China to produce his series The Chinese. Outside China his work has been shown in France, Italy and New York.