Yiming Zhu

Yiming Zhu （b.1999) is an artist based in London and Guangzhou. She is studying photography at Royal College Art, UK. Her practice combines installation and moving images on the basis of photography. Her work starts from reality and focuses on the relationship between consciousness and human behaviour. How to express life experiences in a metaphorical way is the focus of her work. Through fictional memory elements, subconscious metaphors and imagination to form internal and external transformations, the audience is invited into a constructed visual narrative.

Recently, her work was shortlisted and exhibited in:  PhMuseum Days International Photo Festival(2023), Off-Print, Tate Morden(2023), Felix Schoeller Photo Award(2023)， BACKSTROKE, London(2023), Graduates Art Fair, Wuhan(2023), JIMEI ARLES International Photo Festival—Photobook(2022).

Last year, I moved from China to London. Once I stepped into a new land, I couldn't wait to look for some spiritual connections to it, engaging me to better adapt and survive. The collision of memories, wandering shadows, and backtracking information... constantly lingered in my mind. I began to ask the hidden meaning behind identity and its impact on me.

The Orientals believe that all things have spirits, the belief in God has always existed imperceptibly in people's psychology and minds. We always hear it from elders by osmosis, or it may be something that we experience in the context of this culture. I am eager to find its meaning from a non-utilitarian perspective. My work is based on psychology, folklore, and hauntology research. I combine folklore, myth, and legend that are both Oriental and European, to explore the contemporary narrative of spirit and folklore culture. I've found many ambiguities behind the metaphors I work with. But at the same time, the uncertainty is something that fascinates me the most.