Abstract:

Through a case study of the Yangyu rural photography project, this paper seeks to present the situated identity practices experienced by middle-class photographers in the context of slash careers. It attempts to explain why urban residents with stable primary occupations repeatedly participate in rural photography projects and immerse themselves in "living like artists" during short-term residencies, even when livelihood pressures or mobility demands are not the primary motivations. Within a highly institutionalized career system, the primary occupation of photographer slash-line visual creators provides security and dignity. Yet it also dictates their daily life through demanding work schedules and relentless performance expectations. Often photography—a relatively stable hobby—is squeezed into the fleeting hours after work, leaving them torn and burdened between their professional responsibilities and creative aspirations. Faced with this situation, they often embrace the "artist" identity as a source of support. By leveraging the elevated status mainstream narratives assign to artists and their close association with creativity, they find a fulcrum for self-meaning, repeatedly adjusting their commitment between institutional dependence and autonomous needs. Thus, entering visual communities for local creation becomes a crucial way for them to pursue artistic identity. In terms of interaction dynamics, the visual community is guided and organized by "artist-journalists", presenting itself as a collaborative circle that blends public engagement with individual expression while maintaining a non-hierarchical style. This structure allows creators to transform their private creative persistence into a shared, discussable practice through relatively stable interactions. Regarding content, this community emphasizes field-style documentary filming of daily life. Through collective organization and interpretation of these images, it constructs narrative spaces that connect fragmented shooting experiences into coherent expressive threads, achieving an aesthetic reconstruction of everyday existence. Entering the exhibition phase, the intervention of the county-level public cultural system and curatorial team provides artists with a path to public recognition through both offline displays and online dissemination. Repeated public narration and reevaluation of the works' value also enable the photographers to achieve self-affirmation of their artistic identity. However, local creation within the visual community operates on the premise of "short-term residencies", where the construction of artistic identity often manifests as a phased self-narrative. On one hand, rural photography projects formally distance themselves from urban daily life; on the other, participants deliberately maintain a state of "both intimate and distant" relationships. This dynamic makes "living like an artist" easier to stimulate and affirm within the project itself, yet difficult to seamlessly carry back into the photographer's post-departure daily lives. Moreover, this phased self-narrative is paradoxically shaped by the temporal constraints of primary occupations and the logic of capital. The redistribution of time and energy presents an inescapable practical challenge for nearly all participants. Consequently, some creators do not entirely separate their professional identities from their creative sphere; instead, they leverage existing social relationships as a "more efficient" resource for their work. Economic considerations also become embedded in the selection and curation of creative content through more subtle, everyday ways. Based on these observations, this paper challenges existing interpretations that frame multiple professional identities primarily as livelihood strategies or tools for mobility. Instead, it argues that the identity construction of photographers with a slash identity should be understood as a situated identity practice unfolding within institutionalized career systems. This identity construction temporarily repairs the oppressive life experiences imposed by the time structure of primary occupations and rebuilds self-meaning through phased engagement in visual communities and local creative activities. Yet, within the cycle of returning to primary occupations and sustained participation, it exposes an irreconcilable tension between dependence and autonomy. The study enriches our understanding of the life circumstances and identity experiences of contemporary middle-class groups within the context of slash careers.

Key words: slash career, situated identity, photographer, identity construction