It’s hard to pinpoint the beginning of a story, especially when you are part of it. You only realize it once you understand what the story is about—and then suddenly, the full meaning of those seemingly irrelevant yet entangled memories hits you.

Before I tell you about my works, I’d like to show you the beginning of them.

I saw this image from Chinese social media in 2022. At the time, the Zero-Covid policy led Zhengzhou Foxconn, the main supplier for iPhones, to lock down its entire factory, isolating 200,000 workers where they lived and worked. When rumors of food shortages spread, hundreds of workers decided they had to flee.

This image captures the moment when three young people climbed over the factory barriers and escaped. Considering the dangers of fleeing and the severe consequences if caught, they appear so small and helpless. What lay ahead in the darkness was completely unknown. Yet even in such a desperate moment, they took care of one another. It was a magical moment that transformed trivialness into mighty. 

This image signaled a shift in the power dynamics of storytelling—from journalists, news agencies, and authorities to individuals, who had long been the objects of their own stories. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it changed the trajectory of my career as a photojournalist and marked the beginning of my art practice, where I work primarily with found objects and trash.

In 2025, I began my project, Rubbish Theatre. I collected unnoticed yet ubiquitous trash—fallen wig hairs, lost gloves, plastic fragments—assembling them in ways that interact with, disrupt, and occupy the entire exhibition space. Defying their status as "the other," these materials become storytellers, protagonists under the spotlight, narrating the bitter and sweet lives of outcasts—stories that have long remained untold.

This project creates a parallel universe where subject-object relations are reversed. Here, the Other is empowered, takes up space, speaks in their own gesture, own voice —and can no longer be ignored.