Qinyan Liu
Queens, NY
https://designdorisliu.cargo.site/
IG: @shirorie_3

Distant Flash
2022-2023
Mixed paper: uncoated paper, vellum, metallic cardstock
4.5 x 8 inch

Artist Statement

The obsession with taking photos, especially in travel, seems to be a major contemporary symptom from the sociologists’ perspective. Does traveling with our camera at hand all along mean that it replaces our real experience? Focusing on the overlapped realm of photography and travel, “Distant Flash” attempts to imagine this topic with an optimistic vision. In the form of a three-volume photobook set, it explores how the photographic practice can intervene and transform our embodied experience, not replace it, with our initiative at play.

In each volume, the photographs are deliberately curated and “installed” within the printed mediums, juxtaposed with poetic quotes and freewriting text. Various printing and binding techniques also add to the visual effects of the books—mixed paper layers, french folds, two reversed halves of each volume—constructing immersive ways of viewing similar to an exhibition in a physical space. Each volume respectively emphasizes the three aspects of experience (Time, Space, and Sociality) transformed under the mediation of the photo-taking act.