if you wanna, leave it all behind, 2020-2021

Thriving in the state of in-between, I sense a strong alienation and estrangement with the world I live in. As do the people I choose to photograph. I think people, regardless of who we are, would all encounter the situation which each live is being constantly watched, measured, altered, examined, and influenced by oneself and others. It is not a single but a variety of forces that come into confluences that work upon us, some stronger than others at different times, to produce results in our lives, and outcomes in history. That is to say, nothing blooms fully into life solely on its own.

The photographs series of if you wanna, leave it all behind is made to document the paradoxical yet inevitable relationships of the environment, simultaneously representing the mix of the modern life. As a confirmation and a visual record of existence, the imagery attempted to reveal the subject’s not only the version whom everyone knows, but the part of self that one keeps hidden. The tension between the two is playing the guide, and all they have to do is to trust one another.