A Short Experimental Documentary on the Trans+ Social Workers and Crisis Intervention Communities in China.
22 minutes
A network of mannequins trapped in a maze that slowly corrodes what’s inside.
Turns out, it’s a story of trans community survival in mainland China.
The Choice of using AI & generated Manneuins
Generative AI is used in Erosion to create all visual representations of contributors whose identities must remain fully protected.
The process is that stories are collected from direct testimonies and 'abstract re-enactment' will be designed and purposefully feature mannequins and maze, through this what I would like to define as 'post-humanist simulation', AI becomes a tool to hold testimony while transforming embodiment into something safer, stranger, and truer than conventional representation could allow.
Because the film deals with trans crisis-care networks in mainland China, traditional filming would place participants at real personal risk. AI-generated mannequins and maze-like environments allow me to translate their emotional experiences and narrative contexts without revealing any visual details of their bodies, locations, or surroundings.
Ethically, AI provides a safe way to embody testimony while ensuring anonymity. In terms of challenge to the form, it allows the film to explore concepts of trans embodiment, dissociation, and erasure through abstraction rather than literal depiction. These visuals are not intended to mimic realism; they function as post-human, symbolic interpretations of the speakers’ inner worlds.
AI therefore enables a form of visual storytelling that protects contributors, conveys psychological truth, and supports the film’s exploration of identity, care, and survival in environments where visibility is dangerous.
Friction: W (2025), Existing Work
20 mins
short documentary
This film features a trans girl in south China, who has broken up with her family due to her coming out as transgender woman. She has been dealing with the emotional strains and fallouts of her family’s radical opposition for years. In the meantime, she has found a group of queer friends circle as her ‘chosen family’, and gained degrees of mutual love supports from the community. She works as a freelancer while trying to save up for the Gender Reassignment Surgery, hoping to live in a more legitimised and liveable way in China where the gender binary and segregation of trans identities are deeply ingrained in the cultural and social aspects of life.
Employing AI imagery modification to conceal her identity and ensure her safety.
(Currently not able to showcase publicly for safety reasons, in the meantime, arrangements with NGOs and other communities are being made to screen the film in community led safe spaces.)