Curator Selection / 2022 / /

• Photographer
  Xinya Xu, China
• Category
  Asia
• Website
  https://oliviaxu.myportfolio.com/work

Due to China's Zero-COVID policy, Shanghai citizens have been under extremely strict lockdown since March. More than 30 million residents have been forced-quarantined for more than 60 days, which includes my family. Government called life in different stages of Covid prevention policy as 防疫日常 and 隔離日常. It seems that as long as using the word “日常”(normal life) to decorate propaganda, the government is able to glamorize everyday life that residents try their best to achieve in the time of turmoil. Thinking back to the past months, the "normal" life was not ordinary at all.

Xinya Xu, born in Shanghai, China, currently pays the bill as a data engineer in Microsoft. She doesn’t plan to give up her day job and work as a professional photographer, because she believes the feelings and emotions she experienced as an employee will inspire her work. She likes to describe her work as “life photography” for the permanent theme haunting around, about life experience, about the common feelings across context, space and time, language, culture, or history.