Capturing Chinese students in their own spaces, Between Your Eyes and Mine questions what it means to belong without explanation, without defence
Belonging is often imagined as a destination: a place to arrive at, a culture to integrate into, a physical anchor that roots a home. But for many international students, it’s about navigating a world of in-betweenness, guided as much by translation as by intuition. It is within this curious liminal space that photographer Kaishui Yikai Liu positions his series Between Your Eyes and Mine: a tender portrait of his Chinese community in London, questioning what it means to belong without explanation, without defence.
Like many Chinese international students, Liu’s decision to relocate from Wenzhou, southern China, to London was influenced by a “childhood fascination with the West.” Inspired by British photographers like Harley Weir, Tim Walker, and Nigel Shafran, he enrolled in an MA in Fashion Photography at the London College of Fashion to turn his amateur interest in the medium into a professional pursuit. “I came to the UK with an open mind, hoping to learn and grow as a photographer,” he reflects. “I had high expectations for the future. This was my first real opportunity to immerse myself in a different culture and way of life.”
Between Your Eyes and Mine found its foothold in his personal decision to move abroad: why were so many Chinese students choosing to study in the UK? And, as Liu asked, “could they really leave their mark in a foreign land?” From 2022 onwards, Liu began photographing members of his shared artistic milieu in their own spaces and rhythms. “One thing that struck me was the resilience of international students,” he reflects. Too often, they are wedged between stereotypes: within China, where studying abroad is often seen as “a status symbol rather than a legitimate educational pursuit,” and in the UK, where they are linked to “rising rents, overcrowded cities, and overuse of public resources”. “But when you actually listen to their stories,” Liu says, “you realise that everyone has their own struggles, dreams, and way of figuring out where they belong.”
Liu’s photographs transition between portraiture of Chinese students in their own spaces and candid detailing of the surrounding environments; each image is softly cut by light that traces the delicate contours of the liminal world they inhabit. There are no common spatial denominators of a shared community; rather, it is in the silence of each image – lifted only by the unspoken connection between photographer and subject – that an emotional topography unfolds. “At first, I thought belonging was about seeing familiar cultural elements in a student’s living space,” he explains, “but real belonging is quieter. A bedsheet brought from home, a familiar scent, a late-night conversation in your native language.”
It's from this unexpected narrative thread that Liu drew the title of his series, borrowed from a poem by the Syrian poet Adonis: “I see what I do not comprehend / and feel the universe flowing / between your eyes and mine.” As the project grew, he realised that there was no singular answer to his initial questions – and perhaps an answer didn’t matter anyway. What mattered were the relationships that formed quietly, away from the loud labels and explanations so often pinned on foreign students. “I gained a deeper understanding of what belonging truly means,” Liu reflects. “In Chinese, we call this yuanfen – a kind of destined connection.”
More than anything, the photographer hopes that “this project can help people see the diversity within the international student community, to see the brightness in every individual.” Just as belonging is sensed in his photographs – at the edge of a glance, lingering in a room just lived in, in the quiet mutuality between two people trying to understand one another – Liu doesn’t seek to bottle this feeling, only to hold space for the silent, shifting, deeply personal ways we come to know we are not alone.
