2025 -

Secular Devotion examines the ritualized practices of 打卡 (“check-in”) photo culture across China, where people perform choreographed gestures, poses, and expressions shaped by hired photographers, social media, and algorithms. Like rituals, these acts of devotion transform public spaces into stages, turning image-making into a collective, choreographed spectacle. The work explores how contemporary image culture produces both selfhood and collective fantasy, revealing the devotion inherent in performing for the camera in the digital age.

The first half of the project features images produced by the industry, with me performing the poses they directed. The other half consists of my own images and video documentation, revealing the production process, repetition, and labor behind the spectacle. Together, these two bodies of work contrast two ways of seeing: one filtered, scripted, and algorithmically optimized; the other observational, reflective, and human. The project examines how photography and social media shape collective imagination and identity, transforming places into spectacle and factories for images, while also exploring the fantasies and aspirations these images reflect about life in modern China.