The Mirror Stage

The project documents and fictionalizes the retired life of my parents, a typical working-class family in Chongqing. It materializes Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage and transforms the lens into an infant gaze, exploring the family as his first mirrors.

During home visits in recent years, I was struck by the aging of my parents, a typical working-class family in the city of Chongqing, and came up with the idea of documenting their retired lives. Observing them evokes an intense feeling of strangeness. They are so far removed from the vivid image of the caregivers and protectors in my memory and their relationship has grown alienated and unfamiliar. At the same time, what I have inherited from them feels more present than ever. Beliefs, desires, expectations, and fears are passed down through generations in an almost mirrored way.

The project begins by referencing Jacques Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage, in which the infant develops a perception of selfhood, with the faces of parents serving as his first mirrors. I materialize Lacan’s theory by transforming the bodies of my parents into a constellation of mirrors that reflect one another. The mirrored bodies evoke the way an infant perceives the world around him before the fragmented pieces of his own body are integrated into a coherent whole. In this context, the lens I directed at my parents became the gaze of an infant, exploring the family as their first world. This gaze is far from a neutral observer, as the unconscious always alters and fictionalizes in an unexpected way.