Today, everyone is a photographer. This everyday phenomenon reveals the close entanglement of images with life, while also obscuring the inherent complexity and difficulty of photography. As Graham Clarke once observed, photography always leaves us with a lingering, unanswerable question: what is a photograph?
Cao Fei has remarked that her images are not “natural” reproductions of reality, but collages of fictional scenes, virtual emotions, and imagined experiences—“yet it must be admitted, all these hypotheses come from my true memories.”Spanning nearly a quarter of a century, Cao Fei’s photographic practice has unfolded alongside the acceleration of life and technology. Her works have subtly mirrored our own conditions of existence, urging us to ask: why images, why photography?
Starting from October 8th this autumn, Cao Fei: Photographic Journey will enter its “second season.” It examines both the transformations of everyday life since the turn of the millennium and the evolving condition of the photographic medium itself.
Journey through “Cosplayers, Post Garden, Nova”
Location: Mirrored Gardens, Space 2
Cao Fei, Twilight, from Post Garden series, 2011, inkjet print on paper, 90 × 120 cm
Like a fast-forward and rewind through time, in this space we encounter portraits of young people at the dawn of the new millennium, where the boundaries between life and play blur in the shifting roles of “cosplayer” and “un-cosplayer.” These images lead us into the worlds of Post Garden and artificial intelligence. Between the virtual and the real, the fictional and the actual, “nova” emerges in a tunnel where past and future converge, accompanied by the joys and sorrows of growing up in this earthly realm—until, almost imperceptibly, the future has already arrived.
Location: MG Projects@ Re-space
Does the farther journey lie at the borders of the human? At Re-space, we encounter a single photograph. Within the jungle of plants, we arrive at a boundary between inner and outer spaces. Cao Fei continually constructs speculative virtual scenes that reveal both the hopes of accelerated digital life and the uncertainties it entails.
About the Artist
Born in 1978 in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, Cao Fei graduated from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art in 2001. She lives and works in Beijing. Cao Fei works across moving image, photography, theater, writing, and Second Life films, using diverse media to reflect on contemporary life.
All art works by Cao Fei © the Artist
Courtesy of the artist and Vitamin Creative Space.
Vitamin Creative Space
Cao Fei: Photographic Journey (Season Two)
Opening Date: October 8, 2025
Journey through “Cosplayers, Post Garden, Nova”
Location: Mirrored Gardens, Space 2
Journey through “Looking Out from the Edge of the Transhuman”
Location: MG Projects@ Re-space
Address
Hualong Agriculture Grand View Garden, Panyu, Guangzhou
Daily Opening Hours
Wednesday to Sunday, 1 to 5 pm (closed on Monday and Tuesday)
Hours may vary on holidays or in special circumstances. Please check our WeChat Public Account or website for the latest updates.
Please make an appointment to visit the exhibition via the official website of Mirrored Gardens.
Website: mirroredgardens.art
WeChat Public Account: theforkingpaths
Tel: +86 20-31043759
Contact: mail@mirroredgardens.art
Press: PR@vitamincreativespace.co