Grandma: is a personal project and an homage to the photographer’s grandmother, who passed away in August 2020.
“Grandma passed away on an August evening. While changing the shroud for her, I could still feel the warmth left on her body. The warmth was so real that death seemed unreal. After she was diagnosed with late-stage cancer in January, the family had to learn to accept the farewell in a difficult way. We saw her body waste away day by day, but apart from keeping her company, there was nothing we could do.
I proposed to use the thermal camera to explore the latest public monitoring measure in China when the Joop Swart Masterclass began. As I became familiar with the new visual tool, I began to use it to capture the trace of heat instead of living creatures themselves. I couldn’t take any photographs for a while after grandma passed away, and one day, before I realized it, I was using the thermal camera to remember grandma’s trace.” - Yufan Lu.
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Yufan Lu is a photographer based in China. She is interested in exploring social identities and the way visualization works in everyday life.
For the first time, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Joop Swart Masterclass took place online over a period of four months, and 24 participants and eight masters were selected to make the program more inclusive. The educational experience of the Joop Swart Masterclass is based on an assignment to produce a photo essay around a given theme. This year the theme was ‘Reset’.
