Neijuan

Neijuan was born from my experience of navigating a hyper-connected world, where identity is shaped by virtual spaces. It explores how technology—empowering yet isolating—fractures the self, blurring the line between who we are and who we project to be.

Taking its name from the Chinese term "Involution" Neijuan reflects on generational fatigue due to an ever-faster and competitive society. While large metropolises are often seen as symbols of success and innovation, the project explores a different narrative—one that addresses a broader post-pandemic phenomenon, where individuals, particularly the young, experience a sense of stagnation, a refusal or inability to fully re-enter society. At its heart, the project seeks to celebrate difference by shedding light on individuals who live on the margins of society— often misunderstood or stigmatized. The project bridges the gap between these invisible lives and the underground cultures flourishing in virtual communities, which have formed not through geographical or historical connections but through globalized ones. It aims to reveal a different side of technology, not cold and distant, but sensitive and vulnerable.

The photographer adopted a documentary and collaborative approach for the project, having spent years following a small group of people both online and offline met through forums and video games. Her online presence, rooted in her rural upbringing, stemmed from a desire to explore the world. The vastness of big cities once seemed to promise limitless possibilities, but she realized over time that these urban environments were, in fact, deepening the emotional distance between individuals. Virtual worlds and video games offered a kind of freedom—an escape from physical appearance, a chance to experiment with identity, to project a new version of oneself. But as she navigated these spaces as a young woman, she realized that this freedom also invited negative energy. Predatory encounters, fetishization, and objectification of the female body were present all throughout those cultures.

Taking place in the architectural landscapes of hyper-connected Chinese megacities, Neijuan highlights the disorientation and sensory overload of these cybernetic, neon-lit environments. The boundaries between the tangible and the virtual merge in the series. These spaces feel fluid, suspended in time— the virtual bodies are often in motion, but never arriving—constantly shifting, in a state that feels on the verge of transformation but never fully realized.

These digital realms become sites of liberation but also spaces that distance individuals from their physical surroundings. The screen becomes a window to connection but remains the ultimate barrier, blurring the lines between freedom and constraint.