Sijia Ma
Sijia Ma was born in Shenyang, China but has been living and studying between Boston and Shanghai for many years. As a visual artist, Ma’s photographic practice focuses on the societal and natural attributes of the relationship between humans and nature from dwellers, commuters, and members of her family in her hometown, every one of them presenting a unique and encouraging story to the world of the duality that lives within our socio-cultural landscape.
“Through setting up semi-constructed scenes and fantasising about the relationship between archival images and the novel, I try to explore the chain of reactions between one’s decision and reality, order within disorder, hunger, nightmare, and the presence of self-awareness in the strange daily landscape.”
About:
Sijia Ma is a visual artist based in Boston and Shanghai. She is currently pursuing a BA in Studio Arts and Quantitative Economics at Smith College, MA, and she previously studied Graphic Design at Yale University and Photography at Amherst College as an exchange student in 2020. Ma has created several photographic projects and uses her genial photographic language to explore the feature of duality in everyday life. In her photographic project Butterfly Effects, Ma took inspiration from Chinese science-fiction writer Liu Cixin and his renowned science-fiction novel, The Three-Body Problem. By setting up semi-constructed scenes within a natural environment and working on image archives and his novel, Ma unwaveringly explores the equilibrium within the dual-sided nature of humans and nature.
Sijia Ma, Orange Hypothesis, 2022. Digital photography, 18 x 13 cm.
Inspired by Liu Cixin’s shooter hypothesis, Ma tried to discover the possibility of falsely positioning a substance in a temporal-spatial setting against the unalterable laws of the universe in Orange Hypothesis. In this photographic work, an orange is placed in a small box decorated with wallpaper, hanging portraits, and a wooden floor, resembling the interior setting of a domestic room. Therefore, in this context, the orange in the room can be interpreted as a “disorder within the reality.”
Sijia Ma, Spaceship #103, 2022. Digital photography, 18 x 13 cm.
In the last chapter of The Three-Body Problem, a young lady called Cheng Xin falls asleep on her journey to outer space and dreams of standing in a spaceship which is governed by the aesthetic rule of muddledness and lightness. For Spaceship #103, Ma used apples, twisted and intertwined branches, and pipelines to mimic its disorderly effect in the novel, and also the reality of economic, political, and social chaos in this constantly changing, objective world.
Sijia Ma, Away From Water, 2022. Digital photography, 18 x 13 cm.
When Cheng Xin’s spacecraft hits a large body of water on Europa, the sixth-largest moon in the Solar System, she finds out that indigenous plants on Europa are continuously crawling and extending from the water. They chase the beams of light emitted from her spaceship until it’s completely crashed and destroys her spacesuit. The body of water on Europa and the ever-growing plants become epitomes of the temporal-spatial feature when Ma thinks about the idea of space, the universe, and the physical location where she is at present. Away From Water was created when Ma, inspired by these texts in the novel, realised that trivial things she used to be fussy about were actually worth being treated with a cavalier attitude.
Sijia Ma, Study of Europa, 2022. Digital photography, 15 x 12cm.
“Spaceship #103 did not reply, she cut off all its contact with the Solar System, for her world, the Earth was already dead. ”
In the Study of Europa, Ma placed scattered paper-cutting butterflies and a cup of Europa water, representing the duality of physical remains and spiritual memories of the spaceship. Will we ever see Spaceship #103 again? The entangled and twisted woods in the composition represent the interrelationship between human beings and the universe and serve as a metaphor that indicates the trajectories of intersecting lives.
Sijia Ma, Butterfly Effect, 2022. Digital photography, 15 x 12 cm.
Sijia Ma, Birth, 2022. Digital photography, 15 x 12 cm.
In remembrance of her mother’s sister named after these beautiful creatures, Ma’s mother often made paper-cut butterflies and stuck them onto the windows. A piece of red, handmade silk paper itself has no meaning, whereas, when the paper is cut and made into the shapes of butterflies by her mother’s hands, these paper-cut butterflies are affiliated with feelings and memories. It’s as if they are emerging from the cramped papers, flitting in and out of the domestic space, and flying higher up to heaven.
Selected Solo Exhibitions:
A Hundred Stories, Ildiko Butler Gallery, Fordham University, curated by Stephan Hitchcock, New York, July 2021
Scan It, Godine Family Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, US, May 2021- Dec 2021
Selected Group Exhibitions:
American Photography 37 Annual Book Award Winners Exhibition, Angel Orensanz Foundation, NY, Nov 2021
Lensculture, Editors selection, Art Photography Awards 2022 Competition Gallery, Nov 2021
I Matter, Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery, curated by Olu Taiwo, England, 16 Sep 2021 – 28 Nov 2021
Noorderlicht International Photo Festival: The Makeable Mind, Museum Heerenveen, Netherland, Aug 2021
Fourth Chania International Photography Festival, The Grand Arsenal of Chania, Crete, Greece, Jun 2021
Selected Publications:
American Photography 37 Annual Award Book, Scan It, Nov 2021
Existere Journal of Arts & Literature, York University, Vol 41. Issue 1, Canada, Jan 2022
Der Greif, Online Guest Room, Images for the Information Age, curated by Willy Ndatira, Germany, Nov 2021
Burn Magazine Photography Essay, A Hundred Stories, Oct 2021
Paris Lit Up Magazine (9th annual printed issue), A Hundred Stories, Paris, Oct 2021
#ICPConcerned: Global Images for Global Crisis, International Center of Photography, Oct 2021
Selected Awards:
American Photography AP37 Selected Winner
AIS 2022: Women Behind the Lens, curated by Sebah Chaudhry, Finalist
So to Speak Journal 2022 Contest in Visual Art, juried by Ghislaine Fremaux, Second Place
Danni Han
Emerging Artists Co-Editor, MADE IN BED