Ruibao Li
Prior to studying at GSA and after graduating from my BA of Arts in advertising, I worked as a photographer assistant with aspirations of working within fashion. But during this past year and largely due to the Covid-19 global pandemic, I have had to re-evaluate many things from both a personal and creative perspective. Despite having to make compromises and reassess my expectations in relation to my learning environment, I have risen to the challenge and through introspection and reflection, I have confronted the limitations of my daily life and endeavoured to use my experiences to find new ways of making work and in so doing expand my photographic practice.
Paper Cuts – A portfolio of still life photographs contextualised in a small publication
Due to the Covid-19 global pandemic, this project, like much of my current work, developed through my experiences of living in a limited and restricted space during long periods of physical and emotional isolation throughout lockdown. Initially, using an improvised lighting studio in my room, I playfully explored the materiality of domestic objects and how they related to or contradicted each other. Exploring themes associated with balance, risk and anticipation and using still life with a pared down and reductive but refined visual language, I began to view my photographs as a mirror, representing my own life. Through my assemblages, with the knife – sharp and stiff and the blank sheet of paper – light and soft, further themes of threat and vulnerability became apparent. Through introspection and critical reflection, I saw my images as a metaphor for my recent experiences. Conversely, or even perversely, through the enforced limitations imposed on me, I discovered a new way of making work and a form of creative liberty through the making of this work.
Spilt Milk? – A portfolio of still life photographs
Taking my cues from the previous project, I again playfully employed a reductive visual language to explore themes associated with balance, risk and anticipation through photographing assemblages of domestic objects. The main ‘protagonist’ in this instance is a glass of milk, which is deliberately placed in a series of precarious positions. Whilst the images are undoubtedly a provocation, they are intended through visual metaphor to provoke with good humour and directly relate to the idiom, ‘Don’t cry over spilt milk’. That no milk is actually spilt from the glass within the images asserts to the notion that the event or incident has yet to happen or is perhaps on the cusp of happening, hence the incusion of the question mark in the title. Like my previous work, the making of these images was a cathartic experience, an outlet for my anxieties during lockdown.
