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Qiu Ruiqi - A Mental Portrait of Me in t

​Qiu Ruiqi

A Mental Portrait of Me in the Pandemic

2020

 

digital photograph

2020 is a challenging year. We are facing a threat to our physical health and need to consider the issues of mental wellbeing. Like many other international students in Australia, my homesickness is stronger than ever before in 2020. The concerns about the study, family, friends, cost of living, and planning for the future gobble me up. One day in July, I had to make an appointment for a mental wellbeing consultation. The urge to run away from anxiety drives me to create and helps me to think about the storm in my head. I took a portrait of myself in my bathroom without any lighting set up. I edited the portrait as if a kind of mental virus is corroding my head. Photography allows us to dive into the gap between the concrete and abstraction, rethinking the zone in between the virtual and reality.

Qiu Ruiqi focused on capturing people's life to reflect the relationship between society and individuals as a street photographer in China since 2010. She moved to Melbourne to study photography for a master's degree at RMIT University in 2019. She is currently creating photographs by mixing different mediums and methods such as carving due to exploring the further possibilities of photography.

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