In the Space Between
Growing up in China, the topic of refugees was rarely discussed. My only exposure came from distant news reports - abstract and impersonal. That changed with this project. I learned that nearly half of the world’s 43.7 million refugees are children (UNICEF, June 2024). This statistic stayed with me and became the heart of my work.
I set out to challenge the stereotypes that reduce refugee children to mere victims or statistics. My project uses portrait photography and ‘blank space’ to avoid fixed identities and invite viewers to imagine the unseen stories of displaced children. The blank space functions as both erasure and possibility.
Photographed in everyday settings—streets, schools, seashores, funfairs—my subjects are refugee-background children navigating ordinary moments in extraordinary circumstances. Symbolic elements like football fields and Ferris wheels connect personal experiences to universal themes. Football symbolizes shared humanity; amusement parks evoke the dreams and joys of childhood that persist even through hardship.
This project urges viewers to see refugee children not through the lens of loss, but of potential - and to respond with empathy, awareness, and support.