Regardless 《无證綻放》
Photography, 2025
 
Artwork Statement
Regardless is set in a small town in northern China during the 1980s and 1990s, a period of social transformation still deeply bound by traditional values. Marriage was treated as a symbol of social order and continuity, while emotions that did not conform to that structure remained unspeakable.
In this work, I recreate scenes associated with traditional Chinese marriage and place two women within them. These familiar visual codes become a framework through which another kind of love can quietly emerge. The work does not aim to make a declarative statement or offer a direct critique. Instead, it reflects on the quiet persistence of feeling within a repressive environment.
The Chinese subtitle 无證綻放 combines the idea of being unrecognised with the image of blooming nonetheless. Its English title, Regardless, suggests a quiet form of endurance — a way of loving that exists even without sanction. In relation to Distributed Worlds, the work reflects on lives and desires that remain outside dominant structures of recognition, yet continue to unfold with resilience and dignity.
 
Artist Bio
Kanghao Yuan is a Chinese-born artist currently based in Australia. Born in Xingtai, Hebei, he moved to Melbourne during high school and later completed a Bachelor of Photography at RMIT. He is now studying curatorship at the University of Melbourne. Working primarily with photography, Yuan creates images that combine the texture of lived reality with a subtle sense of fantasy, producing scenes that feel both familiar and quietly strange.