I am with me

Li Aixiao

This event has concluded

Dates: 05 Nov 2022 - 20 Nov 2022

Location: Paddington Reservoir Gardens 251-255 Oxford St Paddington NSW 2021 Australia

Hours: Monday - Sunday: 10:00 am-5:00 pm

Entry Fee: Free

Genres: Portrait

When the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in early 2020, I was forced to stay at home for a long time, suffocated by the compression of space and the concrete sense of time.

While everyone began to maintain social distance, I wanted to escape home, break the distance and get in touch with people in reality.

I started to explore the mostly unknown private spaces of strangers. We chatted, did everyday things together, and they lent me their clothes so I could ‘be them’. A tacit understanding between my subjects and me was, ‘when I give you a sense of security you need to keep me safe’. This kind of private connection involved exchanging so much personal information that we started to ‘become’ each other.

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Li Aixiao

Li Aixiao lives and works in Chengdu, China, where she utilises her educational background in Journalism and Applied Psychology for continuous creative work in photography, writing and performance.

Along with her self-published photo book Personal Belongings and mainstream media coverage in China, her works were selected for Art Nova 100 and the SAYA Embrace Project.

Li’s entry for Head On is an ongoing series about human bodies, mainly discussing the connections between body and identity; privacy and space.