The American Dream: Or Was That Just a Movie? is a photographic interrogation of the seductive myths embedded in American cinema, narratives exported globally, and ones I once believed. As an international student from Taiwan who has lived in Mainland China and Tibet, I arrived in the United States as both a viewer and a consumer of these stories. I imagined a life defined by cinematic tropes: the open road, transformative romance, and the promise that hard work guarantees belonging.

After eighteen months of navigating the American system, I began to see the limits of these narratives. The reality I encountered was far more conditional than any film had prepared me for. This work emerges from a geopolitical in-between—Taiwan’s position at the margins of global power allows me to see the American Dream not as a universal truth, but as a highly effective cultural construct.

Beneath the Grid is a conceptual documentary photography project that examines the tension between national development and individual rights amid the expansion of renewable energy. The series was photographed in 2025 on the Tibetan Plateau, where large-scale photovoltaic power stations have been rapidly constructed across traditional grazing lands.

The project emerged from my long-term relationship with local Tibetan herders. During the pandemic, I lived with herding families for over eight months and have returned repeatedly to the region over the following two years. Through conversations with residents, I became aware of how the rapid construction of solar infrastructure has reshaped the landscape and the lives of the communities that depend on it.

The photographs combine ground-based and aerial perspectives. Vast solar arrays stretch across the grasslands, while scenes of livestock grazing beneath the panels and herders continuing their daily routines reveal the coexistence of industrial energy production and traditional pastoral life.

Rather than offering a direct critique, the project adopts an observational approach to reflect on the hidden sacrifices behind the global pursuit of clean energy. By juxtaposing monumental solar infrastructures with fragile human presence, the work invites viewers to reconsider the dominant narrative of sustainability and to question how ecological progress can coexist with social justice.