The project is made possible by 

1. David Zee
2. Stimuleringfonds
3. Gemeente Rotterdam
4. One Way Street Foundation
5. Jiazazhi Press
6. Many other institutions and friends

An interdisciplinary art project rooted in artist Vera Yijun Zhou’s research into the histories and emotional geographies of Chinese migration in the Netherlands. Centered on the Zee family’s migrantion journey from Ningbo to Rotterdam over the past century, the book interlaces archival photographs, field research, and visual interventions across three port cities between the NL and China —Rotterdam, Shanghai, and Ningbo. The photobook interrogates notions of displacement, diasporic memory, and identity in transit. By pairing historical materials with contemporary imagery, Living in Limbo becomes both a personal reckoning and a visual archive of migration—inviting viewers to reconsider how belonging is constructed across time, borders, and generations.


︎︎︎ Exhibition on site at Tank Shanghai.

With the support from OneWayStreet Foundation(CN) and Stimuleringsfonds Talent Development 2024-2025, at the end of 2024, Vera Zhou retraced Che Chai Zee’s migration route in reverse—departing from Rotterdam, traveling through Shanghai, and finally arriving in Ningbo. These three port cities, historically linked through maritime trade and migration, form the geographic anchors of a century-old diaspora narrative. However, beyond historical reconstruction, these research trips intersect contemporary debates on global migration, port economies, and transnational labor networks in the age of globalization.

Through the concept of “image migration,” Vera Zhou’s research examines how visual memory and migration histories move across time and space. By projecting archival photographs onto contemporary landscapes in Rotterdam, Shanghai, and Ningbo, she constructs a visual dialogue between past and present, exposing the tensions between personal memory and institutionalized history. These artistic interventions reveal how migration is not a single, linear event but a continuous, evolving process—one that redefines identities and reshapes cultural landscapes over time.

︎︎︎ Selected photographs by Vera
Living in Limbo; Video 49”00’

Living in Limbo reflects a deeply collaborative and evolving process shaped by both artistic intent and historical rigor. In the earlier 2024 dummy version titled An Absent Stamboom, supported by the Gemeente Rotterdam Cultural Subsidy and Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie (Start-up), artist Vera Yijun Zhou took on the role of both editor and designer. She digitized the entirety of David Zee’s family archive, organizing its contents chronologically and thematically, and translated original texts from Dutch into both English and Chinese. This made the material accessible to a multilingual audience and allowed the work to circulate across cultural contexts. 

The photobook Living in Limbo will be co-published by Jiazazhi Press and Mutual Office in 2025-2026.



︎︎︎ Living in Limbo, Dummy made by Vera