Born in China and currently living in New York, lens-based artist Ramona Jingru Wang investigates “how we care for each other through photographs,” as well as how images intervene with our reality to create connections among people and space. Inspired by Donna Haraway’s “A Cybrog Manifesto,” Wang’s series imagines a world where Asian bodies navigate as cyborgs in a hegemonic human society. The project explores the complex state of being cyborgs and asian–fluid, transgressive, marginalized but also stereotyped as unemotional and inhuman.

“Asian bodies especially, in the media and in general are often seen as robotic, intelligent but less human. Different from Orientalism, the Techno-Orientalism found in many speculative fiction films and books, such as Blade Runner, imagines the future to be hypo technological cities resembling Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, and sexualized, dehumanized asian looking cyborgs. The series is an attempt to create a narrative of cyborgs of our own: My friends are cyborgs, but that’s okay. It is to envision a change of the prevalent binary view, reconstructing the boundaries of daily life and to create a dangerously happy ever after posthuman world for cyborgs.”

Ramona Jingru Wang participated in our Art + Photo Book Awards and made our shortlist. Click here to learn more about upcoming open call opportunities!⁠