Mercury.N/ Summer Issue

Mercury is an artist working across hybrid and cross-disciplinary approaches. From a cross-cultural perspective, her practice explores hidden cultural phenomena shaped by ambiguity within different social environments.

She often works with mixed media to express complex and contradictory conditions. For her, photography holds a paradoxical quality: it freezes a moment while allowing it to extend beyond time. Building on this, she captures moments that reveal forms of existence shaped by absence—of language, recognition, or visibility. These images are further developed through layering, printing, painting, and hand embossing, engaging both visual and tactile perception.

Her ongoing project, Love Letter, reflects on the visible yet concealed nature of queer intimacy within the cultural context of China, while also addressing broader questions of how affection is expressed and understood.

The work originates from a personal experience. Letters exchanged between the artist and her partner were reinterpreted by family members as a harmless friendship. When one letter was later found hidden and unopened, this act of quiet avoidance became central to the project.

Through layered photographic images, figures appear simultaneously connected and separated, meeting through gestures such as touching and holding. Braille is embossed at points of overlap, forming intimate texts that may first seem unfamiliar or unreadable. Through fragmented encounters between image, touch, and language, Love Letter invites viewers to encounter intimacy beyond assumption and to reconsider what is seen, felt, and understood.