Izzy & ZUOLab

Everyone feels the same way when they miss loved ones who have passed away, yet the ways they express it vary greatly. Photographer Izzy Li is deeply interested in the Chinese cultural taboo surrounding “death” as well as Western approaches to death education. This motivation became the central theme of this volume.
This book, Not the end, features cemeteries across the United States that Izzy visited during her school years, focusing her lens on tombstones and various memorial decorations that convey mourning and remembrance. The timeline spans major holidays such as Christmas, New Year’s, Independence Day, and Día de los Muertos. During the course of this project, Izzy experienced personal changes, and photographing cemeteries became a unique way for her to relieve stress.

Unique design typo and afterwords printed on thick green color paper, Hand-made Pamphlet Stitch binding, include 1 UV prints and 1 folding page
After the revolutionary path of “the countryside surrounding the cities,” China entered the new century with a reverse trend — a wave of cities expanding into the countryside. Urban villages have become a unique urban landscape in China, emerging from the rapid, large-scale urbanization of the past 30 years. This phenomenon is especially typical in Shenzhen, the hometown of photographer Izzy Li.
When Izzy returned to China after graduatingfrom the United States, she found thatShenzhen’s urban environment was changing at a pace beyond her expectations. She chose to use the medium most familiar to her — photography — to document her rapidly transforming hometown and made it into a zine named Urbanvillage.

Yongle is a village where Zuo's grandparents live. Located in the Guanzhong Plain of Shaanxi Province, it is an ordinary small village in the northwest, and it even has few traces online. After graduating and working, Zuo rarely goes there anymore. It began to become a distant but gradually blurred garden.
Last spring, Zuo's grandfather fell seriously ill. Later, he gradually transferred from a severe illness to a regular ward and then to a rehabilitation hospital for treatment. The most difficult stage has finally passed temporarily. Zuo started intentionally or unintentionally spending more time visiting him, chatting with him, or sunbathing on the balcony, and returning to his village for a walk and a breeze.
The small village in the northwest is reddish yellow and almost transparent blue. Zuo saw the sky, clouds, moon, and fruits, several households, and some rural animals.
When working on the ground, the boundaries will disappear; In life, the horizon is even more vast and distant. Try to get back to specific people and things, get closer to the ordinary, and then continue to become life itself.