In The Pencil of Nature, William Henry Fox Talbot described photography as a process through which nature could write and draw by itself. Light, without passing through the hand of an artist, was able to leave traces of the world directly upon a photosensitive surface. Later, Anna Atkins published Photographs of British Algae using the cyanotype process, allowing plants to come into direct contact with sensitized paper and generate their own images. At the very origin of photography, the medium was already deeply connected to botany, classification, and the transmission of knowledge. Nature was not only an object to be observed, but also a subject capable of inscribing itself.

Over centuries, the Dai people of Xishuangbanna developed a unique palm-leaf manuscript tradition. Within this cultural context, nature is not understood as a silent object, but as a living and spiritually charged presence. Mountains, forests, ancient trees, and rivers are not merely components of the environment; they are regarded as sites where ancestral memory and invisible forces continue to manifest themselves.

During my field research, I discovered an unexpected coincidence: the dimensions of the blank palm-leaf manuscripts I was working with closely matched those of 35mm film negatives. This chance encounter led me to reconsider the relationship between palm-leaf manuscripts and photography. Palm-leaf manuscripts have long served as carriers of language, memory, and knowledge, while photographic negatives carry light and images. When these two systems met through a shared scale, a new transformation became possible. Using the palm leaf itself as a photosensitive support, I employed contact-printing processes through which film negatives, plants, sunlight, water, humidity, and time collectively participated in the formation of the image. A medium once used to preserve words began to preserve traces of light; knowledge was translated into image, and writing was transformed into development.

If Talbot's photography was a "pencil of nature," then in Xishuangbanna this pencil seems to acquire an almost sacred agency. The image is created by the photographer, but also emerges through a process that follows the logic of natural forces. Photography thus gains a near-spiritual potential, becoming a medium that connects human beings, nature, and the unseen dimensions that exist between them.

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A thousand years ago, as someone drifted along the Yangtze River, they lamented the brevity of life, envying the endless flow of the water. His companion offered a different perspective: "Viewed from what remains unchanged, all things—both the world and ourselves—are infinite."  

I stayed in a bothy in Duror, Scotland. Night rains murmured in the forest, streams whispered beneath the meadows, and the voices of ancient thinkers echoed in my ears.  

The click of the shutter became a healing medium—the camera, an apparatus enforcing eternity upon the ephemeral. Every photograph is art viewed "from what remains unchanged." A long scroll weaves the woodland of the valley into a lifeline of scattered perspective. If reincarnation exists, would it not manifest in such a scene? 

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Memora is a digital speculative platform that envisions a near future where memories are no longer private experiences but tradable digital assets. On this platform, users can upload, browse, and purchase memories—each priced by AI based on emotional, historical, or social value. But there’s a catch: once a memory is sold, the original owner forgets it entirely, while the buyer absorbs it as their own.

This speculative project challenges our understanding of identity, memory ownership, and the commodification of human experience. As technology increasingly shapes how we store and share our lives, Memora asks: what happens when even our most intimate moments can be bought, sold, and forgotten?

A key aspect of the project is the use of found analogue photographs. These real, anonymous images replace fabricated content to create a stronger sense of authenticity and emotional depth. They serve as narrative fragments—memories detached from their origins and reassigned to new owners—highlighting the blurred boundaries between memory, fiction, and ownership.

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Human civilization always brings romance to itself. When technology reaches a certain height, people found a way to use silver to record images. After exposure to light, silver nitrate leaves shadows in a solution of Metol and Hydroquinone, and the excess silver dissolves into Sodium thiosulfate. This perfect chemical process ultimately preserves past experiences on precious metals, a dialectical combination of scientific rationality and romance.

When the safe light turns on, the darkroom becomes somewhat mysterious to those unfamiliar with it, like the small cabin of an alchemist. Dashen place the film in a pan, add used fixing solution, sandalwood, white sage, white liquor, wildflowers, green tea, soil, and ashes. The cigarette burns marks onto the film and eventually ignites the alcohol, causing all the substances to boil in this cauldron.

Through this developing ritual, Dashen obtained some black-and-white negatives full of marks, with images of me meditating. By projecting this negative back onto the studio's white background paper using a film projector, a negative image of me is created in the studio. He then sit back in the center, allowing the projection to fall on him once again, meditate within the negative film of himself that incorporates the five elements.

Preface In ancient philosophical systems, Yin and Yang harmonize all things; within the pulses of the universe, the Five Elements (Wu Xing) interweave in creation and destruction. This chapter serves as a secret manual on the art of harmonizing traditional photographic techniques with classical materialist pluralism. It aims to guide seekers in finding inner Yin-Yang balance at the moment when negatives and reality merge and to offer a guide to achieving immortality within the world of images.

In the digital age, memory carriers exist in a paradox: they are immortal yet fragile. Digital photos never fade, yet a single accident can erase them forever. Their undying nature often resembles a passive curse—untouched, unseen, and ultimately forgotten.

Most digital images hold meaning only for their creators and vanish into obscurity after their passing, cursed with a hollow immortality. Seeking permanence, we extract moments from time, yet even the most stable data rarely outlives its maker.

To explore this contradiction, Dashen printed 1,000 digital photos of his hometown and assembled them into a traditional Chinese armor—symbolic yet useless in defense. It reflects the absurdity of entrusting impermanent materials with eternal digital ghosts, both destined to perish in their own ways.

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My father loves photography, and I grew up with his camera hanging around my neck. In the final weeks of my first university term studying photography, he underwent heart surgery—but only told me afterward, downplaying it as "a minor procedure." It was then I realized he wasn't made of steel.

Shock quickly gave way to a quiet guilt when I heard the news. Though his wound healed, something deeper began to ache within me. I printed hundreds of contact prints from his pre-surgery chest X-rays—each one darkening like the weight of my remorse.

From the used fixer of these prints, I extracted a trace of silver. With it, I crafted a “Five-Colored Stone,” shaped after the patch visible in his post-op X-ray, and inlaid it into the hollow of the image. Though it came too late—more gesture than cure, like a self-consoling meteor—it helped me find, once more, our unique way of connection: gently tending to each other’s hearts through the act of image-making.

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This group of works uses analog photography combined with generative image technology to fabricate the story of a geological expedition in the late Qing Dynasty - in early June 1900, Cixi secretly ordered minister to assess the “dragon vein” of Nanjing in preparation for the withdrawal of the imperial family. British photographer Harry Pressman was sent to investigate in the form of photography. I used traditional photography method to simulate the image that the fictional photographer Harry would present to the Empress Dowager Cixi. Also, I used Midjourney to generate images in a similar style and present them side-by-side to the audience. The project is presented in Ambrotype, exploring the formal language of colonialism under the representation of classical craft, and experimenting with the expression possibilities of wet plates from a historical perspective.

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The book uses real photographs from a former relationship as material to construct a fictional love story, explores how different photographic technologies—analog, digital, surveillance, generative—shape our ways of seeing, remembering, and relating. Under the gaze of photography, the work reflects on how the evolution of photographic media mirrors the changing expressions of intimacy.

By aligning the technical history of photography with the emotional timeline of a relationship, the work highlights how each medium—whether darkroom prints or digital files—affects the texture of romantic relationships. Photography does not simply document love; it mediates, stages, and sometimes fragments it.

In combining fictional narrative, historical image references, and personal visual archives, this project blurs the boundary between memory and construction. It reflects a desire to materialize fleeting emotional experiences, while also questioning whether photography preserves or distorts what we feel.

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When Emperor Renzong of the Ming Dynasty was seriously ill, Crown Prince Zhu Zhanji took 15 days to travel from Nanjing to Beijing via the Grand Canal—a traditional Chinese journey. Today, with China’s rapid development, the Canal has become a living reference of historical metabolism. Six hundred years of fragments continue to intertwine and coexist within its shifting landscape.

Now, I retrace this route, using aerial photography to document the Canal’s evolving story. From above, I witness the drastic transformation of the riverbanks through the interplay of architecture and people. The drone’s view resembles a bird in flight—or perhaps another emperor surveying his land—revealing the surface of the earth below. The aerial photography also carries the unsettling gaze of surveillance: dramatic moments are captured unknowingly.

In contrast to a godlike ideal, what lies below is a modern, industrial Eden—at once desolate and striving. Time’s gears keep turning; images may preserve time, but time pays no heed to photography. I imagine presenting these photos to Zhu Zhanji: “Look—this is your country now, from the sky.”

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