User:XiaoXuan Soda/T2 Assessment

Before I came to XPUB and Why I choose here

Before coming to XPUB, I studied photography at a media university in China. Our teachers mainly focused on documentary photography, especially around social issues, and encouraged us to use photography as a way to promote social change.

One of our senior alumni, Wang Jiuliang, made two documentaries—Beijing Besieged by Waste and Plastic China—both of which had a significant impact on the development of environmental policies in China. This deeply affected me and made me realize that certain forms of effort can indeed lead to tangible results.

However, after four years of studying photography, I began to feel the limitations of the medium itself. As a result, I started shifting towards more interactive and installation-based practices to express my ideas.

When I read about the XPUB programme, I noticed that people were working across a wide range of media and approaches. It made me feel that I could also explore beyond a single medium—this is why I decided to come here.

Sum up！📸💡⚡️👷🏗️ About my work after come to the XPUB!!!

The first interview in Rotterdam at night

About the worm radio project - Rotterdam night interview

I believe that Rotterdam itself is a huge writing machine. People living here constantly create stories. So I decided to interview those who are still active on the streets of this city at night, asking them for their views on the city and their stories.

During this process, I also noticed that there are many homeless people in this city, which sparked my interest in their situation. I began to wonder how they survive, why they have become homeless, and whether their condition is the result of structural issues, government policies, or personal circumstances.

These questions drew me into further investigation, which eventually led to the following development (see point 6).

Link：SI28-Radio-Worm/Week4

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Audiences on Public-Event

About that wood installation art work I made

This work becomes a way for me to reflect on and express my understanding of Rotterdam’s multicultural condition. This was my first time presenting an installation work in a group exhibition. The vibe here was great, and the audience engaged thoughtfully with each artist’s work.

I really value this kind of opportunity to share my work in a public setting. Being able to have my work seen and experienced by others made me feel genuinely happy.

Link：Projects SI 28/Water Vessel Dwelling in Temporality

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Screen shot of picture and Videos

Record picture & video of SI28 Public-Event

During the public event, I took on a documentary role, producing a visual record of each work through both photography and video.

Link：Pictures of SI28

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In the name of XPUB

Amazine

With everyone’s help, I gradually completed my introduction to CSS and designed my own section of the SI28 publication. I personally really like this design!

Try the directory tree script

img {
    float: left !important;
    margin: 10px 10px 10px 0; /* 左边留空间让文字环绕 */
    max-width: 60%;
    height: auto;
}

.clear { clear: both; 
}

.box {
    background-color: #f0f0f0; /* 底色 */
    background-image: radial-gradient(circle, #ccc 10%, transparent 10%);
    background-size: 20px 20px; /* 控制斑点大小和间距 */
}

@page:left {
	@top-center {
		content: '';
		margin-top: 8mm;
		width: 100%;
		border-bottom: 1.2pt solid black;
	}
	@bottom-left {
    content: 'Public-Event';
		font-size: 7pt;
		margin-bottom: 9.5mm;
		white-space: nowrap;
	}
	@bottom-center {
		content: '';
		border-top: 1.2pt solid black;
		width: 100%;
	}
	@bottom-right {
    content: 'Let us unite!';
		font-size: 7pt;
		font-style: italic;
		margin-bottom: 9.5mm;
		white-space: nowrap;
	}
}

@page:right {
	@top-center {
		content: '';
		margin-top: 8mm;
		width: 100%;
		border-bottom: 1.2pt solid black;
	}
	@bottom-left {
    content: 'Public-Event';
		font-size: 7pt;
		margin-bottom: 9.5mm;
		white-space: nowrap;
	}
	@bottom-center {
		content: '';
		width: 100%;
		border-top: 1.2pt solid black;
	}
	@bottom-right {
    content: 'In the name of XPUB';
		font-size: 7pt;
		margin-bottom: 9.5mm;
		white-space: nowrap;
	}
}

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python generate .html

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More Practice ! ! !

Use python generating html file and directory tree.

I followed what I learned and made it work ! ! !

Although I’m not personally very interested in HTML and CSS, I still engaged with the practice and learned a lot from it.

To be honest, working with HTML and CSS can play an important role in building a more decentralized web. It allows individuals to freely publish content within their own or collectively created platforms, without being subject to censorship or evaluated by capital-driven standards of value. I think this is very important.

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Photography Exhibition in Wuhan, China

Link：LANDSCAPE ISSUE

At the end of 2025, I was invited to participate in the photography exhibition Landscape Issue, held at the Wuhan Image Center for one month. The exhibition aimed to explore the expressive dilemmas faced by contemporary Chinese landscape photography during its transitional period. As someone living abroad, I contributed a distinct perspective, offering viewers a viewpoint shaped by distance and displacement.

As a resident of Rotterdam, a city shaped by migration, I continuously experience a state where loneliness and freedom coexist. From this position, I begin to observe the fluidity of identity and belonging.

This work takes the frequent fog in Rotterdam as its point of departure, approaching it as both a symbolic climatic condition and a visual mechanism. Under the influence of fog, the city’s normally legible spatial order is destabilized: streets, buildings, and light sources enter an ambiguous state between appearance and disappearance. Through moving images, I document this visual uncertainty, attempting to translate the migrant experience—of being visible/invisible, included/excluded—into a perceptible spatial condition.

In this process, the city is no longer treated as a fixed backdrop, but as an event continuously rewritten by climate and time. The work considers how individuals reposition themselves within this unstable perceptual environment, forming new experiential relations between disorientation and immersion.

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About the continue of the homeless research project

Following Steve’s suggestion, I went to Pauluskerk, located just south of Rotterdam Centraal Station. The space functions as a support centre for people experiencing homelessness, offering food, clothing, social interaction, and guidance on accessing work.

Over time, I returned there repeatedly, gradually situating myself within this environment. At one point, I also had a meal distributed by volunteers, which became a moment of informal exchange and conversation. I spoke with people from a wide range of backgrounds—American, British, Bulgarian, Romanian, Latvian, Italian, Polish—whose trajectories had converged in this space.

Through these encounters, a recurring narrative emerged: a sense of systemic failure. Many articulated that their basic rights were not being adequately protected, and that they were subject to forms of unequal treatment. What complicates this further is that most of them are EU citizens, actively seeking employment, having come to the Netherlands with the expectation of earning a wage sufficient to sustain their families.

Rather than isolated personal misfortune, these stories point toward broader structural conditions—raising questions about mobility, labour, and the limits of social support systems within the EU context.

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