I arrived in the United States at the age of 17, and my parents chose to emigrate from China last year. The move has been emotionally destructive for me. It feels as if Beijing, where I grew up and where my circle of friends remains, no longer has a place for me. Yet the city is the root of my native culture— and the closest thing to home. If I choose to stay in the U.S. I won’t be able to spend time with my friends or other family members, and will continue to feel disconnected from my native culture. Yet if I were to return to Beijing, my parents, who now have a suburban home in New Jersey, would be on the other side of the planet— and I want to respect their decision to immigrate. It seems as if there’s no good solution to this problem.
The photographic self-portraits in Detachment are my way of expressing this dilemma, and the sense of displacement and discomfort associated with it. They were made in various settings around the New York area, many in public spaces unfamiliar to me— from overgrown parkland to Grand Central Terminal— and some simply in and around my parents’ house. In some of these images my figure is small in the frame, as if to say that the new environment is overwhelming to me. In others, my face is in shadow, as if to suggest hidden feelings.
Light and space are the photographic elements that communicate what I’m experiencing to viewers of Detachment. The images’ repetitive presentation is meant to create a persistent sense of numbness and emptiness, and also to convey the ongoing nature of my disconnected state. Creating the work has helped me cope with what I’m going through, but I also hope that Detachment connects with viewers who may have experienced similar times in their own lives.