“Skin Deep”  is a series of photograph with Augmented Reality component that explores surface of thing – face- in relation Asian shame culture through performing self-portraits.

Chinese shame is rooted on the concept of face. Shame is used as a tool of social control and harmony, as a way to prevent citizens— especially women—from acting in ways that might disrupt the status quo. In “Skin Deep,” I translate the word “shame” to a cultural symbol and create a series of ID -card photographs by concealing my face in Chinese symbolic silk fabrics. The act of masking is a performance of submission to the powerful effects of shame in which I obliterate my own individuality while being completely absorbed into a cultural identity. It refers both the quality of only being seen for my Chinese background as an immigrant in Canada, and the subsequent lack of acknowledgement of my full personhood as a girl when in China. “Skin Deep” is an act of drawing back the curtain and pointing to the deeply embedded feelings of shame that can cause women to hold back and stay silent, transforming the performative gestures into experiences that are understood to be universal and relatable.

This series also have Augmented Reality component. AR is used to enhance viewers’ experience of photograph and makes static photographs alive and architectural. Everyone can experience AR as long as one has a cellphone or tablet and downloads a free app on one’s phone, when one opens the app and points at a photograph, an animated video will appear on one’s phone screen. please see demo  here

For video about this work in public places as part of Nuit Blanche Toronto 2020, please click here

Over the past years, I have been creating a series of works that explore visual culture of shame that integrates performance, photography, video, and installation. “Skin Deep” is one of this series. My focus is exploring the visual culture of shame associated with vulnerability in its personal and socio-political dimensions.  I bring together feminism, globalization and psychoanalysis. By amplifying non-western and underwritten women narratives, I position making shame visible as a feminist strategy of resistance—a productive site of inquiry and an ethical practice that seek altered states of consciousness that leads to restore dignity and humanity.