Becoming While Floating

Yifan Liu

Summary
Final work

I am a photographer whose practice explores identity, healing, and emotional resilience through the medium of photography. My work often begins with personal observation and extends into collaborative processes with others, particularly women who experience uncertainty, displacement, or silence within social structures.

I see photography not only as a means of representation but also as a relational space, a way of listening, connecting, and transforming invisible emotions into visible forms. Through workshops, conversation, and collage, I invite participants to re-engage with their own images and memories, allowing moments of autonomy and self-recognition to surface naturally.

My recent projects focus on women across different contexts, from middle-aged women in China navigating unemployment and family pressure to young Chinese women in the UK negotiating loneliness and belonging. Across these experiences, I explore how photography can act as both a healing gesture and a quiet reclaiming of voice and presence.

I am a photographer whose practice explores identity, healing, and emotional resilience through t...

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CollegeLondon College of Communication
CourseMA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography
Graduation year2025

Working one-to-one with two groups of women, middle-aged women in China and young Chinese women in the UK, Yifan invites them to engage in photographic collage as a reflective and healing process. The video traces the process and key dialogues from these workshops, while the photographs capture fragments of daily life shaped by conversations shared throughout.

Floating” speaks to the uncertainty experienced by the women in the project, whilst “becoming” conveys the ongoing process of forming selfhood in the midst of that uncertainty. Rather than seeking resolution or arrival, this project reflects on the resilience found in unsettled identity itself: the possibility that identity may remain fluid, yet still carry depth, intention, and presence.

Final work

Becoming While Floating

It presents how some women who participated in my photographic collage workshop narrate themselves, revealing their vulnerability and hope through the process.