Nervous: On Awkward Presence
Photography Collections by Yijian Shan
Nervous: On Awkward Presence marks Shan’s early exploration of 35mm film, tracing bodily tension across New York, Hong Kong, and Hainan. The series reflects the instability of one’s presence within systems of looking, where public space produces ambient unease. Working from a post-witness stance, Shan captures peripheral moments- where bodies slip through spatial thresholds, shadow, and blur. Foregoing dramatized action, the work constructs a ghostly theater of the city, in which emotion emerges through fragments and vision remains misaligned- a quiet choreography of awkwardness suspended between order and absurdity.
