Saudade

"Saudade" is a autobiographical photographic exploration and collaboration with place I have been to and people I have encountered with.

"Saudade" is a autobiographical photographic exploration and collaboration with place I have been to and people I have encountered with. Saudade is a Portuguese word that has no direct translation in English. It describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic or deeply melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing will never return.

I enjoy remembering trivial and ordinary days of my childhood. Since I was seven, I have been collecting sentences and paragraphs about sorrow from novels and lyrics. I found the grown-up world and the cruel reality of society sophisticatedly beautiful, so I brought the melancholic childlike mood into my photographs as a shelter.

After years of constantly moving, I go to different places alone to search for the scenes that are connected to my childhood. By presenting the collection of nostalgic places and passersby, I reexamined and recollect the reflections of my childhood memory, expressing my current understanding about life and future.