Guanyu Xu grew
up in a military-housing complex in Beijing, the son of a Chinese army official
and a civil-servant mother. Although he now lives an openly queer life in the United
States, his visits home necessitate a return to conformity. His parents do not
know he is gay, and Chinese censorship laws and regulations still severely
limit LGBTQ+ visibility. But when Xu’s parents are away at work, he secretly alters
their home by inserting countless photographs that he has made or collected. Disrupting
the domesticity he finds smothering, Xu transforms his parents’ home into a complex
tableaux of his dual identities.