“This project is about elderly woman wearing facekini on the beach. Facekini is something like bikini but is covering the face.

Many people may think these images are funny. Sure, humor is a part of my intention, but it’s far from my ultimate purpose. In this project, I try to explore a kind of self-gazing with some surreal, dramatic, and humorous portraits of Chinese. This is very similar to the current situation in China, where society is full of surreal landscape. This project attempts to document these fleeting things.

These masks are hand-made by themselves, which are made of tattered vest, rag or swimsuits, and even cloth from useless pants, so you won’t find one same mask on the beach.

Each facekini consists of different fabric materials. You may think it’s very artistic. They will consider whether the mask goes well with their swimsuit.

In fact, they also know that others may find it ridiculous and strange. But they say the main function of facekini is for UV protection, as well as the offshore pollution in recent years. And more jellyfish attack human. It can avoid getting hurt when wearing a facekini. It also represents another layer of meaning: if you look around the beach, young girls don’t wear facekini, men neither. Only middle-aged and elderly women wear mask. So, I think another reason is that these middle-aged and elderly women are ashamed of exposing their aging and deformed bodies. Wearing mask will make them much more comfortable and confident. I still don’t know what these people I’ve photographed look like.”

“這組作品是2014年，我在青島的沙灘上，為戴著臉基尼的中老年婦女拍攝的肖像。

很多人可能會覺得很滑稽、很搞笑——當然幽默感是我想傳達的信息之一，但這組肖像不僅僅是搞笑這一層含義，它還包含了希望探究人們對自己身體的一種審視。我希望大家覺得這是有趣的肖像，一種超現實的、戲劇感的、幽默的中國人物肖像，這和中國的現階段狀況很像，整個中國社會都充滿著超現實的景觀。這組肖像試圖紀錄這些轉瞬即逝的景觀。

“這些面具基本上都是她們自己動手做的。她們會用廢棄的破背心、舊衣服、舊泳衣甚至舊褲子的布來縫製拼接面具，所以海灘上你找不到一樣的面具。而且一個面具上有不同材質的面料，你甚至可以說非常有藝術感。她們會考慮和泳衣是否搭配，或者乾脆整身都是自己定做的，而且顏色往往非常艷麗。

其實她們也知道別人會覺得可笑，覺得怪。但她們會解釋，它的主要功能是防曬，還有近幾年近海污染，出現很多海蜇傷人，帶著臉基尼不容易蜇傷。還有另外一層含義，就是說，你看海灘上，年輕女孩不戴，男人不戴，基本上只有中老年婦女戴這種面具。所以我認為另一個重要原因是這些中老年婦女開始羞於暴露自己已經衰老變形的身體，戴上面具會讓她們更加自在自信，所以我到現在也不知道我拍過的這些人長什麼樣子。”