Jury’s choice n°8

I was born in the 1990s in China’s family planning period. In the traditional family concept, fathers and grandparents like sons, and patriarchy has authority. My mother has always lived under the influence of the patriarchal system and dared not resist, but just blindly obeyed. When I accepted fine art and art, I learned to express myself through painting, photography and other media. From a woman’s perspective, I collect the trauma of growing up and use photography to re-heal myself. Photography has given me the ability to actively record and tell about life, and has brought me the sharpest perceptual ability to discover the details of life.

Seventh year without you is a personal project that tells about my experience, emotions and relationships of my family. It is the first time that I have dared to look directly at this story. In the 90s, China was still in the period of family planning. In the concept of the traditional family, it was preferred to have sons. Coincidentally, on the winter night I was born, my grandparents found an abandoned child so they decided to adopt him and take him to my home, telling everyone that my mother had had two children, a boy and a girl. We grew up together until we were 18. To protect my brother, everyone hid the truth. My family lied to everyone. This love is deceptive.

As children, we wore the same clothes and owned the same things. My parents love him and me equally. My brother left us after learning about his life. He himself was in a dilemma. To date I have not heard from him, we do not know where he is. This is the seventh year that he has gone. In my work, imaginary and real scenes are interspersed, combining my memories of my brother, evoked by images I made, with real family experiences, coming from family albums. Love can be true or it can be a lie. The lie only serves to protect the heart of the abandoned child.