Jasper Yi CaoPhotography
Horizon, I know you are a ship that will never anchor
Loveletters, Fireworks and Time Travle
A Transoceanic Imagination: Midsummer, 1994
Memory of salt
Pink, Pink
Connected and Estranged Relatives
Physical, intimate
Lyrical Miniature
Between the Wall
Distortion
仙人掌诗人在乱叫 Howling Cactus: Independent Photography & Publishing
01: And then the traces disappeared
02: No words wander here
2/5: Personal Preference
03: Still can't turn to the left
04: Touch us here, in the wrong place
Publication
Lyrical Miniature
Loveletters, Fireworks and Time Travle ( with PNPRESS )
第二支矛 The second spear ( with HAKUCHI )
Untitled, Unsent letter
Curation
Fiction, Vision, MirrorBook Design
一百年太久 So Long ( for Yao Meng)
缀断耳语 Episodic Murmuring ( with Stasis Space, for Yiwei )
神游 Spirt Away ( with Automatic studio )
使者的云 Obscurities ( for Yao Meng & Vera Xia )
Nonsense ( for Choi Hui )
Game of Photos ( for Cai Dongdong )
Fissure of a Sweet dreame ( for Jialin Yan )
Random Access to Memory ( for Tengteng Da )
最后的人 The last of us ( for RyeWave )
目之所至 As far as we can see 2022 ( for athaartspace )
目之所至 As far as we can see 2023 ( for athaartspace )
青灯
一种平静 ( for Wang Xin )
Life-Place ( for Yesheng )
Picnic ( for Uqbar )
俎 Zood ( for Tengteng Da )
Decision ( for Bian Yachun )
Journey of Perplexity ( for Lei Bai )
Water, Elsewhere ( for Jianuan Xu )
The Evil Dragon Was Defeated in Winter ( for Shu Zhang )
CV
Jasper Yi Cao (b. 1998, Changsha, China) is a photographic artist and book designer based in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Her work explores the intersection of archives, memory, and collective experience in contemporary Chinese society.
Blending photography, handmade books, and darkroom techniques, she constructs non-linear visual narratives. She is also the founder of a design studio and co-founder of the “Howling Cactus” photography group, through which she has published magazines, exhibited internationally, and supported self-publishing. Her practice spans image-making, editorial design, and independent publishing, with a focus on history, memory, and the poetics of time.
jasper.caoyi@gmail.com
Instagram: cao1caoyi PhotographyMemory of salt
China
2019-2023
Gelatin silver
The photographs capture moments from my daily life and the surrounding world. From pressing the camera button to developing the silver-salt film, the process of capturing these everyday moments is guided by intuition.
Beautiful and spontaneous moments are unconsciously captured through the camera, fleeting like the chemicals touching the negatives and papers, revealing their enchantment.
Moments, such as sparkling water and blooming fireworks, vanish in an instant. New stories emerge in different negatives, redefining time by either prolonging or revealing the past. Memory acts as a bridge across time and narration. Different moments seem to occur at the same place, fueling my fascination with multiple exposures. Revisiting past images reconstructs memories, intertwining past, present, and future. As salt silver films develop into clearer images, the once ambiguous boundaries of the images become definite, mirroring the image-making process—evolving from nebulous to concrete.