Image of Family Album Newspaper 2019-2021

Family Album Newspaper 2019-2021

$18.00

In this project, I explore the fluctuating power dynamic in photographs, and how photography creates a communal space through forming social relations among the subjects, photographer and the viewers. I photograph professional Asian models intimately with their home and family members, in contrast to their coexisting high production photographic identity that they have when they are working in a commercial setting. In the photographs I reveal my presence as a photographer as someone who is in an equal and caring relationship with her subjects. I want to create a collective sanctuary through the making of the images with my subjects.

Printing intimate family portraits on newsprint paper that has a conventionally commercial connotation, I want to question the tokenizing practice of having poc models in commercial campaigns, and the overly identitarian reading on poc artist's work. What do we see when we see asian models in photographs that resemble a family snapshot? and what makes an artwork political? Does the appearance of Asian bodies in an image make it inherently political?