18% Grey is a photographic exploration of personal and collective trauma stemming from China’s One-Child Policy, introduced in 1979 to curb population growth. While the policy may have eased resource pressure, it inflicted profound psychological consequences on millions of families. One of the most devastating consequences of the One-Child Policy was that if a family lost their only child, the loss became permanent, with no hope of another.
This project centers on the story of my cousin, who vanished over a decade ago. He was the only child of my aunt and uncle, who have spent ten agonizing years searching for him—visiting police stations, filing reports, and chasing every possible lead, all in vain. Their grief, silence, and fading hope echo the experiences of thousands of “bereaved families” (失独家庭) across China—left in emotional and social limbo by policies that both governed and abandoned them.
The title 18% Grey derives from photography, where 18% grey is the standard reference point for measuring exposure. Here, it becomes a metaphor for the emotional ambiguity experienced by these families—suspended between light and darkness, presence and absence. Neither in the clarity of mourning nor in the certainty of closure, they remain in an indefinite grey zone of waiting, uncertainty, and institutional silence.
The project inhabits a space between documentary and conceptual photography, using repetition, abstraction, and symbolic coding to reflect trauma that resists articulation. It asks whether photography can give form to grief that defies representation - and whether such images can still resonate, stir empathy and make visible what is otherwise unseen.
