Tied and Untied

This project explores the contradictions within China’s evolving individualism. While young people increasingly pursue autonomy in career and relationships, their choices remain tied to family responsibility. This localized individualism promotes self-agency but often leads to internalized pressure—young people blame themselves when they cannot meet personal or familial expectations, as if success alone could solve all problems. The result is a psychological tension: striving for independence while remaining emotionally and morally bound to family. Using fashion photography as my medium, I constructed a symbolic three-person family. Through their gestures and interactions, I recreated scenes of daily life, centering around the act of hanging laundry. This routine gesture becomes a metaphor for care, burden, conflict, and reconciliation. By capturing these visual moments, I explore how personal agency and collective identity coexist and clash in contemporary Chinese society.