We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Meng Tian a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Meng, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

I want to talk about the film and photography that I have been primarily focused on.
I aim to present my work through 3D mediums for the images I produce and in other diversified ways through multi-media. I never think to label myself as a photographer, at best I am just a recorder of a community and culture that is not yet been fully accepted, understood and therefore comprehended by society at large. Most of the people I photograph are exiles whom have been barred from popular and mainstream networks, like me who exist on the fringes and margins of what is considered acceptable.

They love what I love, the only difference is that they perform on the stage, while I exist behind the scenes balancing on the waves of these precious moments, now passed. I don’t a have a good and expensive machine, or the resources of a platform to share my work. Even so, I remain obsessed with the mortality of these moments; of the film and a sense of catharsis through the physical and chemical chemistry of being in love when I am filming and after through my process.
I covet the people around me. I think they are very powerful and excellent and they all have shining qualities that fascinate me. I want to exclaim loudly that there exists a group of people who are strong, attractive, positive and upward.
Even though there is no reward, they continue to do what makes them feel whole and content. So I hope to record my community as vividly as they deserve to be, to preserve and decorate their present history in all of their incredible vibrance and color.
I believe that life is a stage and authenticity is only captured at times unintended. Whether it is laughing, crying, hugging, kissing, drunkenly peeing, intimacy, depravity, pretentiousness without any filter. Intuitively fierce and naturally expressing the existence of love, I take pictures of my intimate perception as naturally as they exist.
The group of individuals I am referring to is a sect of the queer and performing drag community in China.
I have been repeatedly reported for being involved in controversy surrounding themes of nudity, pornography, and other accusational miscreance and even for my own adjacent involvement with this controversial group.
I’ve learned so much from my continued experience as a scribe for these marginalized peoples, but my most important take away from doing what I do is to continue. Just to continue, because sometimes our most important achievements come without reward, in the most extreme cases they come with resistance and hatred before they can be digested and acknowledged. I hope to let my work speak for itself and maybe through that my experience understood.

Meng, 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 use to launch art events while i get into vintage brand ,responsible for connecting overseas directors for expo and direct my fashion show ,holding art exhibition to combined with visual art display music and installation ware, mixed with the emotion of focusing on time life, which makes people immersed and experience a deep resonance in the heart.
Holding flea market and a special performance art show themed llustrators,sculptors, crafts , for the expression of a current social state.
By the conduct a art fusion. Insist that a collection of artists, across regions ethnicities.
NOW I aim to present my work through 3D mediums for the images I produce and in other diversified ways through multi-media,with my art book .also I do created a new brand call M11 which including the handmade and art accessories ect,

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

IN light of the ever -evolving progression of the times ,there is a growing propensity among individuals to showcase their personas and express their individuality via the expansive realm of social media which i lack of the consciousness
I do want to know the way how to show the society of my work without been banned and against the community .

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

THATS WHT I M HERE !COME TO AMERICAN !

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.instagram.com/maoshiyii?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mengtiian/profilecard/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Image Credits

@MAOSHIYII
ALL BY ME