Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Draven Zhao. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Draven thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
The project I am currently working on is about my relationship with my Bed. We spend so long time in bed among our life make me start carefully consider what bed really mean to us, physically and mentally.
It all starts with my feeling on the bed. As a kid, I believed monsters were living under our beds, and the bed was the only safe place. I fear sticking my hands or feet outside the bed’s edge into the darkness, the unknown for a kid’s eyes. The darkness came from every direction that the body did not come into contact with the bed, from the ceiling when we faced up to the back when I was lying sideways. At the same time, the bed is also the sacred, safe place where I recharge after getting exhausted from the day. It is where I meet the true myself; the mattress softly supports my spine, and the sheet warmly wraps me around.
However, the habit from childhood keeps me from extending my limbs outside the bed and constrains my brain from thinking about what’s up in the cell or behind my back. Some nights, I roll on my bed and can not sleep. At that moment, I realized the fear above my head and around the bed, in the most comfy place that was supposed to be; the feeling never left me. It is there, consumes me when I unfold the sheet from my body and threatens me while I lay, sit, or stand on the mattress. Bed becomes a specific location that is safe to be true to self and be vulnerable to the outside world in this depressive era.
Draven, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I had my first camera since I was 8. I feel committed to the photography medium. By practicing my discipline more that 15 years, I develop photography as a language that I could express and deliver the most. I am now work as an and artist and fashion photographer, besides that I expand my region to installation and sculpture. All those technique give me the ability to tell the story that I truly care as a human being in the society and universe.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.dravenzhaophotography.com/
- Instagram: Dravenzhaophoto
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/me?trk=p_mwlite_feed-secondary_nav
