Traces of Home: Exploring Personal Memory and Visual Storytelling with Xuan Feng

Create! Magazine is pleased to share an exclusive interview with Xuan Feng (b. 1997), a Chinese artist working in photography and video. He received his MA from the Royal College of Art in 2023. He currently works in London. Xuan’s visual work focuses on the transformation of communities through urbanization, and the narrative deconstruction and reconstruction of individual and collective living spaces.

What initially sparked your interest in photography and video? How did you deepen your skills or understanding of these mediums during your time at the Royal College of Art? 

Before photography, I explored fashion design and was fascinated by mixed media and fine art-based visual creation. It wasn’t until I came across Wolfgang Tillmans' Anders (2005) that I felt the pure emotion within a single image, the tenderness and calmness beneath an alienated portrait. That moment shifted my focus toward still photography and film.

During my time at the RCA, I tried not to limit myself in the traditional concept of photography. In my practice, I experimented with various creative techniques whilst in the darkroom, through times of experimenting, I gradually found my own creative approach. With insightful ideas from my peers, tutors and a good use of resources the college has provided. I managed to deepen my research and practice through constant learning and experimenting. 

Xuan Feng, Flower and hot water bag from “Still living”

How is it working as an artist and building the foundation for your early career in London? 

After graduating from art college, I faced both life pressures and creative challenges. The balance in my artistic process felt disrupted, and with limited resources, I had to make compromises. For instance, renting darkrooms to print my work in London is costly. However, I see this as an opportunity. I’ve connected with many talented artists along the way. London is a city brimming with freedom and fresh inspiration, offering countless opportunities for emerging artists. I’m continuously working hard to find the ones that align with my vision.

Xuan Feng, Untitled

In your current work, you explore themes of memory, home, and belonging. Why were you drawn to these concepts as a starting point for your images? 

Due to urban redevelopment, the place where I grew up no longer exists, all buildings tied to my memories were demolished. Instead, they were replaced by gigantic factories. That was when I felt my connection to my hometown was severed. Since I’ve been moving in between different cities in China, mainly for my study, doing art research and practical practices. I started to feel emotionally distant from my hometown.

Through this experience, I began looking for traces of “home” in my neighbourhood where I lived at that time, especially in abandoned residential buildings awaiting demolition. I found a lot of dust-covered objects, which evoked a strong sense of nostalgia and became a major source of my inspiration. That’s why I decided to capture my subjects, using fixed compositions to explore the relationship between personal memory and visual storytelling.

Xuan Feng, From “Greenland 468”

We'd love to hear more about your process. How do you conceptualize a series, decide what images to shoot, and edit the compositions? 

My initial creative process was more research-based, relying on text and field studies. However, it is interesting that my creative approach changed drastically after graduating from the Royal College of Art. I stopped focusing so much on conceptualizing my work. Instead, my approach shifted towards validation of my personal experience while shooting. At the time, I use my personal experience to translate my feelings and emotions, through the language of direct photography. Because "I" itself is shaped by experience, culture, language, and so on. So I returned to the state of pure enjoyment of capturing. The moments I press the shutter are usually when an unexpected feeling occur, and so on, an emotional connection form between me and the moment. I decide the final selection of imagery after developing them in the darkroom instead of planning what to capture of what to form ahead. By the end, with these unplanned images, they are experiences and reflections of my fragmented memories. 

Xuan Feng, Lily, From “Still living”

How do you envision this work evolving in the future? What do you hope viewers take away from seeing your art? 

As my surroundings change, my perspective evolves. I try to stay open while continuing photographing. Photography is a powerful medium for examining history and bridging what we see and what we know. I see my work as an ongoing journey that connects personal narratives with broader social transformations. Through subtle, often overlooked moments and objects of everyday life, I try to evoke a sense of nostalgia for disappearing personal memories and dwellings. I encourage my viewers to rethink how urban changes erode history and personal connections.

As someone constantly on the journey, I find myself rebuilding relationships with new communities wherever I go. This has deepened my thoughts and understanding of belonging, and I plan to keep exploring this subject through photography, translating these feelings into images that others might relate too.

Xuan Feng, From “Greenland 468”

Critical summary

In “Greenland 468” and “Still Living”, the artist Xuan Feng examines the collision of memory and modernity, using film photography to document abandoned spaces in transition. These images do not simply capture remnants of life but probe the psychological weight of forgotten objects—fragments of domesticity left adrift in the wake of urban change.

There is an archaeological impulse at play, a quiet excavation of memory where static scenes invite a slow, reflective gaze. The photographs resist sentimentality; instead, they function as surfaces of projection, where absence becomes a potent presence. In “Still Living, particularly”, the interplay between object and observer forces a confrontation with nostalgia—not as a longing for the past, but as a reconstructed, evolving narrative.

Much like David Campany’s meditations on photography as an open-ended discourse, this work refuses closure, leaving the viewer suspended in the liminal space between documentation and personal memory.

Xuan Feng, Gift, From “Still living”

Interview by Alicia Puig, contributing writer since 2017.