‘The White Barracks’ imagines a fictional island inhabited by girl cadets engaged in endless military drills, using allegory to examine power, patriarchy and the reproduction of ideology. Moving between fiction and documentary, Lean Lui asks what might emerge when inherited myths begin to fracture.

This work is the third chapter in Lui’s ‘Girl’s Universe’ tetralogy, which examines how belief systems, domestic structures and power are reproduced through images and rituals. While the earlier chapters explored spiritual ideology and the construction of home, this chapter turns to the fissures and instabilities that emerge within systems of power.

In ‘The White Barracks’, a fictional island is inhabited by a battalion of girl cadets engaged in constant military drills. At its centre stands a crystal monument etched with a wartime photograph and the words, “With the most ruthless weapons, we guarded the purest hearts.” The naval uniforms worn by the girls symbolise discipline and authority, but also carry the visual language of imperialism, spectacle and the commodified fantasy of girlhood.

The work reflects on how images circulate in the digital age, endlessly reproduced and stripped of context, shaping collective memory and normalising systems of control. Yet the cadets also carry the debris of history, fractured symbols and institutional power. Within these ruptures, ‘The White Barracks’ asks how new forms of solidarity and spiritual community might begin to take shape.

Artist Bio

Lean Lui is a fine art and fashion photographer from Hong Kong. She holds an MA in Contemporary Photography: Practices and Philosophies from Central Saint Martins and has also lectured on contemporary photography at Hong Kong University SPACE.

Immersed in a family shaped by Chinese philosophy and raised in Hong Kong, she brings together Eastern and Western thought, with a particular emphasis on Taoism. Her work explores layered ideas of purity and belief. She has exhibited internationally, including at the Beijing Three Shadows Photography Award Exhibition and the Hong Kong International Photo Festival. In fashion, she became the first Asian and youngest photographer selected for the 2020 DIOR global campaign.