Yushi Li — Female gaze

Yushi Li is a chinese woman who takes photographs of western naked men in UK. As an heterosexual female photographer, she is attracted to male bodies and she’s trying to find ways for women to express their sexual desire.

My Tinder boys.

This projects are photographs of different men she met in tinder eating naked in their own kitchens. Inspired by the cliche photos of naked woman and food.

She messaged more than 300 men on tinder, most of them ignore her, some of them replied but wanted something else, only 15 said yes in the end.

These images reveals men’s uncertainty in knowing on how to be erotic for the camera.

Women have always been something pretty, something to be looked at.

She is quiete tired of seen naked women everywhere, and everybody is talking about how beautiful female bodies are, she agrees with that, but she thinks that men bodies are equally beautiful.

Your reservation is confirmed.

In this project she booked the ideal homes by airbnb, booked the ideal man through live modeling websites to construct her ideal images.

During the photoshoots she always needed to work with the uncertainties and limitations given by the space and the man she booked through the internet, sometimes the room was too small or the man was not as handsome as the image online. So there is always a gap between the ideal, what she wants and the real, what she gets.

Her presence in the pictures is to create a more dynamic relationship between the look at object, the viewer and the third party who is looking at the viewer. The women in the picture is not really herself but a women figure who function in the same way than the man, the table and the teacup, so in a way, they are all just props for the image she wants to create.

What attracts her the mosts is not the body but the fantasy of being in control. Their nakedness is more than a way of representation of eroticism and also her attempt to have the power over them. But the power is always shifting between her and the man and the viewer of the image. Is a bit like a game for her.

So by creating this intimates encounters with different male strangers and bringing the illusions of desire life out of the digital screen she tries to use her work to play with the power of the gaze and examining established ways of staging eroticism and intimacy.

A gaze in gender, desire and sexuality.

Nowness made a nice interview and video, you can see it here.