xavierjzhou@gmail.com
As I continue turning my feelings and experiences into my work, and moving from one city to another, I find myself constantly searching for a place that I can finally stop and call “home.”I've realized that belonging doesn’t have to be tied to one particular city, or place. Leaving a place doesn't mean breaking my connection to it. However, these lasting connections don’t hold me back from developing connection and community in new places. It’s because I never enter a new space or new era empty-handed. I bring my culture, my background, my memories, with me. They give me the ability to connect and interweave with new cities, new friends, new communities, and new cultures. All of these experiences, woven together, shape who I am. For me, belonging is something we carry with us, but also something we continue to create.
I used to think of all the places that I lived as just backdrops to my life. But I've realized that each place offers unique knowledge, communities, history, and opportunities for self discovery. Environments have their own power and depth，and the relationship between space and destiny is far more complex than I can even define. A space isn't just a location; it's also a reflection of our identities.
My destiny and culture have given me the courage and opportunity to keep exploring new spaces. They become my tools, my medium, my 'yarn,' that I use to explore myself, and then are used to extend that understanding to my surroundings, to this land, and even to its history and culture.Ultimately, I realized that the transitional spaces I once thought were just leading me somewhere else were actually the spaces I had been searching for for so long，the spaces where I truly belonged