Rising Stars: Meet Xintong “Lillian” Li

Today we’d like to introduce you to Xintong “Lillian” Li.

Hi Xintong, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself. 
I am Xintong Li, you can also call me Lillian, I was born in Shanghai, currently studying and living in Los Angeles and now study as Calarts BFA3 Photo and media student. I kind of born in a very artistic family, but not in a professional way, Let’s say I feel everyone from my family has a lot of art interest. My mom said when she was going to apply for college, her dream job was fashion designer; my aunt is a graphic designer; my uncle owns his personal book printing company. We all learnt art from my grandpa who was a photographer and a writer. He had more than a thousand fans on his blog when he was young, I basically learnt photography from him and was inspired by him for sure. I grown up with my grandparents, and they used to bring me to everywhere in Shanghai that buses and metros can reach when I was in kindergarten. Then, in elementary school, my parents took me everywhere in the world: Europe, North America, Australia, and elsewhere in Asia. So that kinds of vacation vibe really raise my interest at traveling, I just love traveling. Learning at Calarts was kind of my top 1 choice when I was applying for college since here is Los Angeles! I have been to Los Angeles several times, and the sunny weather really saved me from daily life. Then I made it now, and my holiday plans are basically visiting National Parks these years which improve my knowledge on taking landscape photos. Back to when I was in middle school, I had my first camera that my dad gave that to me, then I started learning photography use my first Canon 100D in 2016. My grandpa took me to the park beside our apartment every day in summer to record lotus in the pool, but two summers after that, he passed away suddenly. After that, photography was kind of the only connection that I can ‘talk’ to my grandpa in a different way, since every family members around me were immersed in a particularly sad atmosphere, so I usually walked out a lot with only my camera and my earphone. That was a sad beginning, that why I started to learn photography, but the story after that was much more positive and happier. As you can tell, I am really influenced by my family members, so a lot of my work is about my family, memory, and love. Since my grandpa left my grandma, my mom, and me, there were only three women exist in our apartment. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that my parents were divorced when I was in middle school; since then, me, and my mom went to live with my grandparents, so I realize that all of my work were very feminist in a very gentle and powerful way. My mom really teach me a lot in every field, especially being warm on how to accept love and give love to others. I started to get in touch with installation and text mix with photography after I entered college, therefore I am not only photographer right now, I am more like an artist, so I guess that’s me, a powerful warm cute lady artist.  

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome? 
I think my artist road is kind of smooth, as I introduced in the story before, my family really support me a lot learning in an art school. But it was still a hard decision for me to choose to learn fashion or fine art because Asian parents would very consider if kids can earn enough money for themselves after graduating, especially my dad, so communicated with him was kind of hard that time, but so glad that he was understanding and accepting my choice.  

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others? 
I usually do work in a set, including photography, video, installation, graphics, and text to narrate family memories from a personal emotional perspective, rewrite dreams and reality, and observe the impact of urban changes on citizens. Also, focus on the alley life in Shanghai, explore the charm of Chinese culture, literature, and the impact of cultural differences between China and foreign countries on international students, especially through languages and texts. I started learning photography in 2016, it was already 8 years from then, so I was no longer satisfied with just doing 2D still photography, then I got into installation, curation and photography books. During my younger photography life, I did street photography about the people around my neighborhood who are living in a ‘modern’ alley and what has been changed after it came to the year after 2000. I feel that rather than letting the photos lie on paper, I want them to come alive from my camera and live in their own apartment that suits them. My first photography teacher was my grandpa, he taught me a lot, he taught me how to experience and record daily life as well as my grandma. There are a punch of family albums that they took for me when I was so a kid. I guess it is my turn to record the moments between me and them, but regret to say I have no chance to record my grandpa anymore; he passed away so unexpectedly. That is my first-ever artwork. I did, picked and rewrote those memories that I wanna remember forever with him. Then, it came to all the pain or unhappiness that I experienced. I did a related zine about me, and my grandma spent our time together to redeem each other during pandemic after the person who had been with her all her life passed away. This is what I will have an extension on at my thesis. As a homesick girl, I miss my family and my home in Shanghai all time, so I bring Chinese to my work a lot, sometimes without translation. I did a huge photo book using the skill of word combination in Chinese, I guess that made me feel more familiar and comfy. To take a further step, I began to realize there is always culture and language gap between two different countries. That is why Chinese is so attractive to me; at the same time, it influences every non-native speaker. I do wanna speak for our community, hoping people who only speak one language could know that there might be something out of their understanding or rewrite the feeling that people might be lost sometimes, and that is not because you don’t speak good English. I continued rewrite everything since I hate the word ‘End’, I prefer to stay in a utopia that dream is never separated from reality, I even bring my dream to reality. Define it myself: the time in reality always keeps moving continuously, but it can be stopped in people’s dreams. As I said in my mid-res show, how do people know reality? If the dream is real enough, it is difficult for people to know that they are dreaming. But it could also be a lucid dream about the unity of nature and man. For me, the stereotype of art is beautiful things, and dreams are synonymous with beautiful illusions. I can understand and watch art that is not pretty at all, but from my own artistic works, to be extreme, I only allow them to be beautiful. Even though I have experienced that pain, I don’t want the audience watching the work to feel the same pain. Since I also know that no one can understand my pain from my perspective, which is suffocating. I would rather choose to rewrite the good memories before this happened. As I have experienced, no one can fully understand the pain of others, and everyone lives a different life. At the same time, as an extreme optimist, I hope that everyone will feel the desire to continue watching my work after the first peek. If they don’t think about it deeply, they don’t have to think about any unhappy things behind it. In other words, even if behind all comedy is tragedy, I would rather write the script in a comedic way. There is only a better way, isn’t it?  

Who else deserves credit in your story? 
Every of my family members definitely need everyone’s support when I am growing up. Also, my boyfriend, Jiayu Chen. We have been with each other almost six years, and he gave me lots of confidence, support, and love. To be honest, I cannot do everything without him right now. As well, all of my best friends that I met from middle school till now, especially my two best homies, Xinyu Chen and Yiren Zhang. 

Contact Info:

• Website: www.xintongli.art
• Instagram: lillian020116
• Other: Wechat: lxt-cjy_020116

Image Credits
Xintong Li