Qi Guan

This project takes its inspiration from the contemporary Chinese club scene, a space marked by alienation, heavy spectacularization, and a bubble-like temporariness and the actual experience of the clubbers. It explores and embodies how today’s Chinese youth—particularly Gen Z, the main participants of clubbing practice negotiate their identities within a cultural landscape shaped by both tradition and rapidly shifting modern sensibilities. Rather than standing in opposition, these forces exist in a constant state of tension (between seen & unseen/ common & staged/ rebellious & convention…), producing a fragile yet compelling sense. Visually, the work employs a cinematic vocabulary: staged environments, carefully orchestrated lighting and color, and performative gestures. These elements are deliberately heightened to evoke in-betweenness—a liminal zone where boundaries blur, identities slip, and nothing ever fully settles. Through projections, collage, filters, and nonlinear narrative, the photographs construct layered visualities that shimmer between clarity and distortion to present the special discontinuity of Chinese clubbing.