Judges
3rd PLACE
Courtesy of Yufan Lu
Yufan Lu
Lu Yufan is a photographer and writer who lives in Tianjin and Beijing, China. She achieved a MA degree in Photography and Urban Cultures at Goldsmiths University in 2017. Lu is interested in visual representation of everyday life. Her work is based on extensive sociological research, and while she often combines photographic practice with performance, she's especially interested in the therapeutic function of expressing with the body in front of camera, and how that relates to one's perception and identity. Lu's work has been shown in exhibitions in China, UK, Germany, Singapore, and received the PHMuseum Grant New Generation Honorable Mention Award, Firecracker Photography Grant and Encontros da Imagem Photobook Award. She's also one of the 2020 Joop Swart Masterclass alumni.
Grandma
Grandma passed away in an August evening. While changing the shroud for her, I could still feel the warmth left on her body. The warmth was so real that death seemed unreal.
After she was diagnosed late stage cancer in January, we had to learn to accept the farewell in a difficult way. We saw her body wasting away day by day, but apart from keeping her company, there was nothing we could do.
I couldn't take any photographs for a while after grandma passed away, and one day, before I realized it, I was using the thermal camera to record grandma's trace.
As my own way to remember her, I used my own body to follow grandma's trace in the house, on the objects and in the family photographs. I feel that by doing so, I became closer to her than any time in my life.
The images also go with a written letter to my grandma, thus the title "Grandma"