The Voice of Gulangyu — Women’s Island
Gulangyu, Xiamen · 2024
After returning to Shanghai, everything felt a little surreal, as though I had just woken from a beautiful dream. The bustling transportation system suddenly seemed a bit excessive. In just a few hours, I went from that small island back to my home. The shift in natural surroundings and atmosphere felt so sudden.
It used to take days of traveling, where I would experience gradual changes in the landscape, from nature to culture, making the journey feel like I had truly set foot on that land.
This sense of transition, this juxtaposition of nature and urban life, is something I seek to capture in my photography. The quiet moments, the spaces between the busy scenes – they hold stories of their own.
Handmade Photobook
I have long been interested in constructing a photobook through a cinematic logic — allowing images to unfold continuously, like a strip of film, rather than being read in paired spreads.
After returning from Gulangyu, the impulse to make a book emerged almost immediately. Working with single-sided prints, the accordion structure became both a practical and conceptual choice.
From more than a thousand photographs taken on the island, ninety images were selected and gathered into this handmade book. The book becomes a way of holding transition — from island to city, from experience to memory — in a tangible form.
