Hold Your Breath

French thinker Roland Barthes proposed the concept of “punctum” in photography. According to my understanding, punctum is the common human feelings contained within the space of the two-dimensional photo, for example absurdity and misery. In an era of homogenization, raising an existing problem of the world is a rarer ability compared with solving a problem. Photography helps me keep independent judgement and curiosity towards people and things, although I may be biased or tend to observe stealthily.

As someone who doesn’t have many chances travelling afar, taking pictures wherever and whenever I can is more becoming for my current status. As I meandered around the city, a scene that I used to be familiar with subconsciously suddenly showed up and I felt the world was frozen and turned into a series of replay-able codes when I pressed the shutter. Taking pictures aimlessly, sometimes can be deemed as trifling. Moreover, it can help to stop us from forgetting things and function as a key to the cognitive world, to embrace life earnestly.

Curator: Li Nan