Jinyong LIAN

Trust Me presents a series of semi-fictional portraits of Asian women navigating the delicate balance between trust, doubt, and intimacy. In a visual culture where Asian women are often positioned as passive objects of observation, my work reverses the gaze, portraying them as active experimenters of emotional structures—exploring vulnerability, control, and hesitation as strategies for survival.

The series articulates a state of dérealisation, a subtle psychological dissonance in which perception, self, and environment feel unsettled. This condition encapsulates the tension between control and loss of control, highlighting phenomena such as high-functioning anxiety and emotional masking—modern experiences of women rarely expressed in contemporary photography.

Having lived across China, France, and the United States, I approach these images as emotional translations between cultures, revealing the unseen architectures that shape how care, doubt, and intimacy are expressed.

Trust Me thus occupies a rare social and artistic space: at once a personal psychological study, a cross-cultural exploration, and a meditation on the unspoken emotional labor of Asian women in post-intimacy societies.