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Tiramisu (2020-2021)
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The word tiramisu translates loosely to “pick me up” or “cheer me up.” This series is a visual stanza composed of intertwined narratives, a testament to connection, collaboration, and the lightness that emerges between wit, spontaneity, and shared action. It centres on what’s closest to home: friends, roommates, neighbours. The work stands as the antithesis of the photographer’s urge to exoticize, instead turning the lens toward the familiar intimacy of fellow foreigners finding belonging in the same place.
Created in Espoo, Finland, amid the isolation of Covid-19 and the deep winter darkness of the 60th parallel, Tiramisu unfolds as a dialectical and collaborative process. Members of the Chinese student community were invited to participate not as subjects, but as co-authors, proposing ideas, locations, and gestures for each photograph.
The work looks to dismantle the hierarchies of image-making, replacing the dictatorial picture-maker with what might be called a wolf leading from behind. Together, we worked to subvert the flat stereotypes often projected onto migrant communities. The process became a kind of social support system, a communal act of creation that oscillates between fact and fiction. The resulting images merge documentary and imagination, revealing how collective play can reshape experience, interconnectivity, and memory.
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Tiramisu dwells on the familiar rituals of shared living: the staircase where laundry is done, the bed where conversations stretch late into the night, the fleeting expressions after a profound statement or an embarrassing laugh. At the common room table, over home-cooked meals, we found a quiet thrill in togetherness — a simplicity eroded by virtual hyperconnectivity. In these moments, a mirror might be placed uncannily, not to reflect reality, but to reveal something new: a gesture of care, a trace of joy, an image of life unfolding within reach.