I photographed my grandmother not only because she was my relative, but also because she was a barefoot doctor who lived through a time when social systems were closely entwined with personal destiny. She carried her sick uncle on her back along the ridge in the countryside, a path that was both real and a metaphor for the struggles and powerlessness shared by her generation. While she later faded into oblivion, I jotted down these images in an attempt to reconnect my family's memories.


My own wanderings, between London and my hometown, represent the state of another era: globalisation, migration and alienation. The birth of my sister and the aging of my grandmother are metaphors for both the family and society: the new and the old, life and death, memory and forgetfulness are constantly alternating, and together they constitute the reality we live in. Photographing my family is my way of trying to understand society. Behind the personalised images, I see a larger narrative gradually emerging.