According to Xianhua Lou, identities are realities mixing up with imaginations; and failure to construct a self-accepting and satisfactory sense of selfhood often results in fear, and anxiety. He wished to use his photographic creations as a way to reconstruct inside us a solacing assurance that life’s meaning is going on with or without other’s approval. Coming from small places in southern Hubei, he understands deeply the feeling of being overlooked and unheard; the voiceless should not be the label that defines our sense of who we are. Instead, it’s a source of self-reimagination when we understand the fact that our unique existence does not require us seeking approvals from others so long as we start to truly love ourselves and see inside us a world full of endless possibilities ahead of us.
