Ruidi Mu

Within my research, photography often becomes a starting point for triggered imagination. While the purpose of this project is not to define the imagination, a key concern of my Ph.D is focused on exploring and investigating whether an imaginary action could be identified as a 'Happening', and through doing so, to reimagine the space of the 'Happening' through the lens of photography. Like the moment of photography, a 'Happening' can never be repeated.

Strange Phantoms and Fictitious Dreamlands offers a consideration of the conjunction between photography and 'Happenings' as a means to explore the intersections between art, life and identity. An understanding of performativity infuses this practice-led research. What does it mean to perform the identity of an artist? What does it mean to perform the identity of oneself? This study is also about gaps, and about things which happen in between things. These gaps occur between history and representation, between images and interpretation, between the artist and the viewer.