Traveling Series

I. Fade

While traveling in Mauritius, I became friends with a family who lived next to my hotel. Before I left, I promised to stay in touch with them by email and to send mosquito patches from China as a gift, since they couldn’t afford them. I also told them I would come back to visit someday.
After returning home and developing my film, I discovered that when I had first tried using the flash, I had set the shutter speed incorrectly. As a result, in every photo taken with the flash, only half of the image was properly lit.

For many years, I never returned to Mauritius. I never sent an email to the family—not even the electric mosquito patches I had promised.
In the meantime, I learned how to use the camera and flash properly. I mastered the art of taking perfectly exposed photographs. I stopped using film; now every image appears instantly on an LED screen, and there are no more irreparable mistakes.
But once, my hard drive failed. After recovering the data, I opened the scanned files—many were missing, and others were scarred with strange cracks.
Memory fades. Film fades. Even digitally stored files fade. And so does kindness.
︎︎︎Photographs;
Photobook printed in CMYK;
Size: 160 x 210mm ; 54 pages.; 2019

II. Sesame and Mung Bean

Meritocracy has always been a passionate narrative. Even gamers take stimulants in pursuit of better performance. Entertainment, once a reprieve, has become a grotesque byproduct—growing brutally and chaotically under the weight of societal pressure.
Suffering and entertainment are, in the end, deeply intertwined. The clown’s smile often resembles the contorted grimace of someone in pain.
In Chinese, the phrase “sesame and mung bean” refers to trivial matters. These snapshots capture the spontaneous, derivative amusements of ordinary Chinese people. They are surreal and pervasive—magical realist games that, in some ways, help maintain the stability of the social structure.
These are not careless indulgences, nor are they merely an escape from life’s burdens. They exist in a strange in-between, where hardship and joy are inseparable.

︎︎︎Photographs;
Photobook printed in CMYK;
Size: 420 x 297 mm ; 52 pages. 2019