Occasionally I listen to this song by Avicii and am sure that many people like me sing along to this song:
“He said: “One day you’ll leave this world behindSo live a life you will remember”My father told me when I was just a childThese are the nights that never dieMy father told me.”
(The Night – AVICII)
The lyrics remind me of many previous stages in my artistic journey, the most profound of which was when I decided to take what might be my last set of photos to see if I could still continue with fine art photography.
“In the depths of hardship, small hopes become miracles.”
I bet all my hope on the Boundaries photo series: ambiguous between reality and dreams, pessimism and optimism.
“Boundaries” was born at a time when I was about to give up the path of artistic photography because I did not have enough money to support myself. After two Covid pandemics, I think there are many people like me who have to make more important decisions in life by putting aside their passion for art and focusing on practical things to make money to live. Pandemic difficulties, pressure on mental health during months of isolation in narrow spaces, surrounded by lifeless gray walls, and lack of contact with people and nature… revealed signs of psychological instability. With all of that, I have no choice but to accept reality and find for myself an escape, another world where I can imagine trees, nature, and love, and temporarily ignore the surrounding pressures. This is like an antidote to the soul and hopes that: I do not give up in this situation and the only thing I can do in reality is to find some way to create a fine art photography project before I give up on the journey of art photography to start another job in the future, I tried and tried my best, who knows, maybe there will be some luck can come to me to help me believe that I must continue with my chosen photography path, (Note that each country’s context is different so the potential of each field will be different)
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And I started trying. I found pieces of colored paper, dolls, and some old magazines in my room…
“I create characters from these materials to express my feelings, hopes, and desires, a feeling that something can hold my good wishes to the universe.”
During that process, I realized that there was an important function of photography that I had not realized for a long time, which is the ability to liberate the mind, I had a new feeling that photography can reduce the mental losses of the young generation transitioning into adulthood including loss of identity, the meaning of life and connection with oneself and the natural environment while submitting to brutality and material possessions.
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These losses are metaphorized by the interweaving of material and spiritual values in the works. They serve as invisible boundaries that remind us of the correlation between bleak reality and brilliant fantasy. They reflect the pure, optimistic, and soaring soul of a child in contrast to the lonely, empty, and disorientating reality of adulthood in modern society.
The invisible boundaries in these works are created from the visible boundaries between Western photography techniques and Asian Painting through a process of photographing using recycled paper samples that have been crafted, cut, and folded onto dolls. Then, the dolls and crafted recycled paper are photographed in combination with string puppetry Art to create abstract movement effects seen in these artworks.
I aim to rekindle the beautiful memories and optimism of the inner children within every adult, highlighting the body-soul-nature connection, and the ability to connect people with others through this form of photography and the educational elements conveyed in the series.
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