Photographer Lean Lui discusses her poetic new photo book, which embraces feminine-coded motifs like bows and white socks
When Lean Lui first began photographing her younger sister, it was when they were both children, reenacting scenes they’d watched play out on American modelling shows. In the years since, the siblings have mostly continued mirroring this scenario, swapping out the bold theatrics of competitive TV in favour of a practice centred on Lui’s personal sensibility. “We’re close, so she finds it easy,” shares the photographer on a Zoom call from Hong Kong. “It’s better than a self-portrait.” There is, however, a departure of sorts in Lui’s latest work, Aseptic Field, a new monograph published by Setanta Books. Where most of the book features just a single figure, in one image two sets of feet wriggle in, or out, of familiar Pointelle white socks: it’s one of the photographer’s few exceptions.
Shot over five years, Aseptic Field is Lui’s second book, following 2018’s <19.29>, and is largely informed by the same feminine-coded motifs, such as school girl-affiliated white socks. “I loved Barbie when I was younger and was raised in a girly environment,” says the photographer. “I still enjoy it, embracing that girly style.” Elsewhere across the book’s pages, bows, pearls and petals all make cameos, while in one image Lui’s sister curls up against a glass fireguard; wearing a peach-coloured dress, she almost resembles a shrimp.
In another photograph, titled Peach Torture Room, Lui shot the relatively plain walls of her old London apartment. An MA student studying philosophy and photography at Central Saint Martins when the image was taken – during a particularly melancholic period of Lui’s personal life that coincided with lockdown – it’s illustrative of the darker themes that the photographer took on during the project’s second act, when emotions drifted towards grey. The finished book is a product of these intrusive states and a desire to create a sanctuary for oneself.
With several images from Aseptic Field currently on display at Boogie Woogie Photography in Hong Kong (until December 16), below, in her own words, Lui reflects on her intentions for the work.
“I’ve been taking photos since primary school. My family used to watch America’s Next Top Model, so my cousin, my sister and I would dress up and use my grandma’s house as a set. At that time I didn’t regard photography as an art, it was just a game. Later, I did photography at university. I did a series about women and age, because my family is mostly girls and women. After that, I knew how to use photography as a visual language.
“I used to write when I was young, however I feel naked when I write my own story. With photography, people can enjoy the aesthetics but the meaning is like Morse code. My first series was about school bullying and I shot with film. Because it’s a bad memory for me, I didn’t want to forget it but I didn’t want to bring it into my future, so I wanted to find a place to store it – the negative is the best way for me to save it.
“The biggest difference between my first and second book is the undertones of my work; it’s quite emo and sad in this project, especially the attitude to sex. The starting point was emotions and cleanliness. When I was young I watched Asian dramas [on TV], and they always have a pure love; also in my family, everyone married their first love. So I always had this fantasy and it means a lot to me. When I was 17 I dated a boy, but later found out he had been in a relationship with somebody else [previously]. I couldn’t accept it, it felt so unfair, making my idea of ‘pure love’ become ‘dirty’.
“The outside is always chaos, so when I want to find a place for my soul, my photos and the world I build for myself is where I find the most confidence; a space that’s totally pure and clean. That’s why I wanted to make a book, it’s more concrete. It’s like building a house, choosing which binding, which paper… That’s my journey with this. Also, I wanted to record this important moment of my life; 25 is a big milestone, it’s a period I should remember.
“The title is very scientific, it’s isolated and cold, very restrained; I was thinking about testing for bacteria in petri dishes at secondary school. An aseptic field has no bacteria, no germs, just very clean and pure. That’s my ideology for my emotional value system, like the pureness of love. My photos are quite emotional, poetic and dreamy, but they’re also very calm. The emotions are inside but it’s like the sea, when a wave comes and the sea remains looking calm, but underneath the wave is big.”
Aseptic Field by Lean Lui is published by Setanta Books, and is out now.