“Home Is A Concept explores homes beyond borders through capturing people’s connection with each other and nature. These photos and prints are documentations of home as where I currently live (Vermont, U.S.A.), and where I am from (Suzhou, China). 

I left home (Suzhou, China) at the age of 12 and started taking photos as a way to document living on my own. I looked into past photos as archives of memories and a starting point to think about nostalgia. Nostalgia doesn’t simply mean missing home; to me, it is a place or time that can no longer go back to.

Photography has always been about collaboration for me. When I take photos, I think about people. My mission as a photographer is to discover humanity in the machinery. We humans are alive; we move, and we have the potential to disturb “perfection”: standard pose, perfect lighting, and ideal backdrop.

I believe in photography and poetry as ways to share beyond borders, to bring the perspective of a person from one place to another. I puzzle words and images together to express the longing of home and to explore what nostalgia means to me. In this case, home is no longer a set location, but a fluid concept.” – Xiao Ma

---

Words: Xiao Ma

Bio: Xiao Ma is a Chinese writer and visual artist now based in the U.S. Xiao’s understanding of love is what led her to create art; her work offers a narrative and photographic exploration of love through observations of human interactions, emotions, and social events.