Pixy Liao challenges conventional gender dynamics and explores female identity in her ongoing project Experimental Relationship.
Photography: Pixy Liao

In ongoing since 2007 project Experimental Relationship, Shanghai-born, New York based photographer Pixy Liao examines gender dynamics. She shatters the patriarchal stereotype of an heterosexual relationship by switching roles with her five-year-younger Japanese boyfriend and muse, Moro. Through staged photographs, which were ‘never meant to be documentation’ of their daily life, Liao explores how national culture influences and dictates interactions in a romantic relationship. Raised in China, Liao had been brought up with the expectation to be with someone who will be her protector and mentor. The divergence from the authority and power dynamic she had expected in her relationship become a central part of her playful series. Experimental Relationship challenges traditional gender roles of sex and power, exploring the range of relational possibilities.

Born and raised in Shanghai, China, Pixy Liao is an artist who currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. Liao holds an MFA in photography from the University of Memphis and has participated in exhibitions and performances internationally, including the Fotografiska (New York), Rencontres d’Arles in Arles (France); Asia Society (Houston); National Gallery of Australia (Sydney); the Museum of Sex (New York) among others.