This photobook is a representation of my current project The Skeletons In The Closet, which explores self-identity through challenging the stereotypes of filial piety in the Chinese tradition through a Western perspective. It is also a response towards a family trauma in 2016, the year of my grandma’s departure. This event has triggered a sense of questioning about my role and gender in family relations. I have placed my work within a set of Chinese folktales called 24 Paragons of Filial Piety as visual metaphors to elaborate my point. In this work, I perform various bodily gestures in the images to indicate my subversive attitude towards authority, such as the hidden use of the middle finger and the display of deliberately inappropriate acts. I am also interested in discovering my identity as a female through exposing my naked body in front of the camera- this is also constituting a subversive process. Using a surrealist approach to the aesthetic of my photo collages, I am looking to create the feeling of a subversive fantasy that would never be possible in real life.
 
With an introduction of my family's situation, plus the images and a separate signature of original text from the folktales.
 
Embossed and printed hardcover
18x14.4cm, 86 pages
Self-published
 
Edition of 24
October 2022
£50 $480