Horizon Statement

My inspiration is from the concept of "Rebellion is the rule", the slogan from the “Little Red Guard” in Chinese Culture Revolution (1966 -1976). By producing large format of photographs influenced by propaganda posters in that period, I try to produce a series of images that question current assumptions about the primacy of established power in my own understanding.

The installation of my photographs relays the gazes between a grid of young Chinese girls and the adult audiences.

From a remote village in central China, those innocence female children are among the most unwanted people for the country. They are in a position of powerlessness. Crouching down and staring back at the camera, the little girls’ collective naive gaze, questioning the outside world, is very penetrating. Because of the village’s isolated location, some of the girls have never seen a camera before.  They dominate the frame and the spectators, offer oddly sinister and uncomprehending expression.

The formation of their portraits into a grid suggests that the girls sit like a tiered group of theatre critics, looking out to the audience of strangers (mostly adults), thus leaving the viewers vulnerable. By the girls’ sheer number, and by the size of the installation (4 meters high and 8 meters long), the girls, a force of hope and of rebellion from oppression, endearing alien and monstrous, will seem to pose a threat to the adults.

It is about domination/submission, masculine/feminine, adult/child. The little girls represent the new generation of China -- the revolutionary future: the future challenge  towards the established power.