Ruiying Feng

I am an artist whose practice grows from within cosplay culture. Using photography, installation, and mixed media, I explore how identity is performed, constrained, and reimagined. My work often begins with the materials closest to me—wigs, makeup, props, lace, and discarded objects—transforming them into sculptural installations that hold emotional residue and visual memory.

Coming from a background where non-mainstream identities are often censored, I see cosplay not just as fandom, but as a radical form of self-expression. It allows me to slip between roles, test boundaries, and build visual narratives that resist fixed identity. I work with everyday and second-hand materials, echoing the resourcefulness of subcultural communities and the improvisational spirit of DIY practice.

In Archive365 (2025), I preserved used makeup wipes, bandaged selfie lights, and silkscreened cosplay objects as a way of archiving transformation—what happens after the performance ends. The installation reflects on how identity is both masked and revealed, and how fragile materials can carry the weight of personal and political tension.

Through my work, I want viewers to feel they’ve stepped into a space once inhabited—where the body has just left, but its traces remain. I invite them to witness the quiet after a transformation: the soft power of performance, the residue of resistance, and the intimate struggle for visibility.