Occupy Wall Street 10th Anniversary

Between September and November 2011, the Occupy L.A. movement consumed the city from its inception gathering at Pershing Square, the downtown marches, and the encampment at City Hall. Photographer and filmmaker Ginger Liu documented the Occupy Wall Street sister movement and captured the dreams of a fairer society through the Faces of Occupy. 

Two of my short films are group exhibiting at CICA Museum in South Korea

Two of my short films are group exhibiting at CICA Museum in South Korea and the work is also available in a book.

May 6 – 24, 2020

2020. 05. 06 – 24

The Artist Statement Book Series by CICA Museum features artist’s statements of visual artists from around the world. Artist Statement #5 features 28 artists worldwide. #artist #contemporaryart #artgallery #contemporaryartist #film #video #visualart #exhibition #southkorea #book

https://cicamuseum.com/artist-statement-5/

Feeding horses on my trail run during the coronavirus lockdown

My feelings of loneliness and isolation have been soothed by my daily feeding of these local riding school horses. During the lockdown, we are allowed out to exercise and on my trail runs through green belt and National Trust beaches, I stop by and feed grass to the horses.

I’ve never been fond of these animals because their size has always intimidated me. The last time I rode one was when I was ten years old. Since feeding and walking with these characters, I am super confident around them and I want to take riding lessons when life gets back to normal. To stay connected with these guys, I hope to join this riding school because they have changed my life during the lockdown.

Captain Tom's epic walk for NHS charities

Captain Tom's one hundred lap walk for the NHS for his 100th birthday has to date secured over £32 million in donations for NHS charities.

Captain Tom's one hundred lap walk for the NHS for his 100th birthday has to date secured over £32 million in donations for NHS charities.

Captain Tom's one hundred lap walk for the NHS for his 100th birthday has to date secured over £32 million in donations for NHS charities.

Coronavirus Lockdown

What I’ve noticed in my neighborhood since our three-week lockdown. People walking with a bag or two of groceries. People and families cycling at all times of the day. Mum and dads with their kids. Elderly couples out for a walk. All of us getting out of the way of each other, social distancing when we are walking down the road. I actually cross the road. The quiet streets, 98% of cars are gone and it’s nice and quiet. The birds are singing. The main Duke Street road outside my kitchen is quieter, although cars still go by. The nice and clean area at the bins at the front door because the nail place is closed. She opened up for a client yesterday. I’m sure most nail and hair people are doing work on the side. Shopping at a corner shop and how pricey it is. Not going to the fruit and veg shop in Formby village because it’s too expensive. Not going to the supermarket at all is actually such a relief. Not going into the village at all. It’s nice not to have so many cars and noise on the roads. The environment, mother earth can actually breathe for the first time in two hundred years. Seeing cars and vans with supplies for the vulnerable. People wearing masks and scarves. Seeing the inside of famous people’s homes. Zoom interviews on the news. I’m watching workshops and webinars about the film and the streaming. Having support for the government, despite our political affiliations. No parties having a go at each other for a change. 

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I Have Lost Myself

“The more I performed as my mother, the more I became her. I am writing a script about her and me and our relationship and how we have reluctantly reversed our roles - Mother and Daughter. I am slowly losing myself, just as my mother is losing herself. I am taking on my mother’s identity by performing as her and by caring for her and writing about her. By shooting a film a day, I am forced to film when I don’t always want to.”

“The more I performed as my mother, the more I became her. I am writing a script about her and me and our relationship and how we have reluctantly reversed our roles - Mother and Daughter. I am slowly losing myself, just as my mother is losing herse…

“The more I performed as my mother, the more I became her. I am writing a script about her and me and our relationship and how we have reluctantly reversed our roles - Mother and Daughter. I am slowly losing myself, just as my mother is losing herself. I am taking on my mother’s identity by performing as her and by caring for her and writing about her. By shooting a film a day, I am forced to film when I don’t always want to.”

Notes on a Film - I Have Lost Myself

I read yesterday about acting and I took mum out to the pub and I filmed a MFA video. I don’t feel any truth in it. I like my face in the camera and I don’t like my full body yet because I haven’t found a place to do it. I will rent a studio and film there. At the moment, I still don’t know how to move but then I don’t want to move because I am pretending to be mum and mum doesn’t move much. I have the look of my mother. I am losing what my aim is. I want to show different emotions which my mum goes through in a minute - fear, anger, happiness, confusion.

I watched Son of Saul and loved the cinematography and depth of field point of view. Face acting. I watched The Passion of Joan of Arc for acting with the face. I want pale white skin and bright red hair with ocean blue sparkling eyes. I need truth and emotion. Mum was better with wine and didn’t moan at all when I wheeled her home from the pub.

Notes on a Film - I Have Lost Myself - 2017.

Photographing for Pleasure

I had a day off on Sunday and it was a beautiful sunny morning. I just knew I had to be out with my camera. I love my job but being stuck in front of a computer, editing all day, can mess with your head. I had to get out and away from the laptop and mobile technology.

I love the pinewoods near my home and I’d missed running in them for the last seven weeks due to injury. It was time for me to test my calf and knee and walk some trails. I knew what I wanted to photograph before I went out. The shafts of light that hit the trees and light up areas of the forest floor is magical to see and I think I came up with some magical images.

A selection of images will be available as cards and pictures.

Ginger Liu Photography

Dad’s Birthday, Kodak and the Power of Photography

It would have been my dad’s 98th birthday today. It dawned on me with this colorful Kodak snap of my dad and me in Los Angeles, that I am now older than he was in this picture.

Moving images have a way of keeping their subject in the present and photography freezes time but get the right picture, like this one of my smiling dad with me surrounded by the blood red hues of the carpet and the glorious blues in the towel and bed spread, and somehow an image like this -at least for me- is present and full of wonder. It’s as if I could fall back into that moment after the picture was taken and my dad would stand up and carry me in his arms.

My family album collection of Kodak snaps taken in Los Angeles in the 1960s is what Roland Barthes describes as a punctum moment. These images prick me, fill me with emotion and take me back in time.

Ginger Liu is an American British photographer, filmmaker and writer. As the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, she has promoted international arts and entertainment, business and tech clients from Los Angeles to London and has produced digital and social content for more than a decade. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Photography and film and her work has featured in Portrait of Britain and Women Cinemakers and screened and exhibited around the globe.

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My Girl Triny 15 October 2018

My girl Triny is getting put down today at 2.45pm at the vets. She has late stage kidney disease, which she was diagnosed with five weeks ago. The vet then told me could go then but I brought her home and fed her with a shringe and for the first thee weeks she was doing okay, sniffing for food, she even wanted to go outside with the others and she would come to me as usual and give me a meow, her high pitched female meow. But this last week she had gone down hill, she wasn't washing herself and she was throwing up her food. At the weekend, she peed next to me on the couch and could hardly stand. I had to wait until today to take her to the vet. Last night I brough her to bed and under the blanket and she peed again but we both stayed there until it got to hot for her and she jumped down on the floor. I kept the heating on for her yesterday and all night. Saturday night, I left her in the living room for the first time and she sat next to the heating, which is where she is now. She is skin and bone and can hardly stand, her eyes are sunken in and she no longer meows at me. Despite my feeding her, she has lost even more weight and there's no coming back. I have been so upset, even more upset than mum in the crying department, perhaps because I was expecting mum and I wasn't expecting Triny to go. She and her brother have been with me for 14 years and traveled the world and because I am freelance and work from home, we've spend so much time together and I have lived on my own for many years and had them as my pals and company. They got me through the loneliness and i was responsible for them. I wasn't expecting her to go now and it's hard. I will bury her in the garden, wrapped in something and then I will go for a run. I miss her already because she has not been herself for five weeks. She was always my little girl and I was always her mum. She licked my hair and forehead every day and she churped like a bird, she always wanted to be around me and wanted to lick me and rub her chin on my hand, she always wanted her mummy, every day, she was my girl. She was the boss of the other cats and would smack Orby and Charlie and always get to the food first. Since Triny has been ill, Charlie has gotten fatter. Even with her illness the last few weeks, the other cats were still afraid of her. She was the boss. And she ate first. And she would walk around with her shoulders up to give attitude to Charlie and to tell her who was boss. Orby would chase Triny sometimes and she would scream like a banshy. She would follow him whenever we went to a new home. They were a team. But she was my girl. Everyone thinks Orby is my favorite because he's so loud and bold and hansome and he is lovely but Triny is my girl, she gave me attention 24/7 and would come running whenever I called her. She was my pal. Whenever I went away for long periods, I would come home and she would cry and cry and make such a fuss and she would then sit with me for there days solid until she was satisfied I wasn't going anywhere again. She was never like that with anyone else but me, she was my girl. Orby would be okay with another family but Triny only wanted me, her mother, she was my girl. I look at her now, sitting on a cardigan, next to the radiator, she can barely stand and I miss sitting here working on my computer and not having her sit behind me on the chair, licking my hair, purring with content, licking my forehead and my hand, she was my girl. She would sleep on my pillow and sometimes her head would rest on my forehead as she went to sleep, she was my girl. When we went outside, she would come running everytime I called her and she would chirp like a bird. She didn't like being outside much. I got both of my cats in Chicago and they grew up there, thick as thieves until they were a year old and she didn't want him near her anymore. We flew to San Francisco and live in Rockridge, where they had a garden and then we drove to Los Angeles and to Hollywood in a small apartment which was too hot for them. We flew to London, then drove to Formby to live with my mum in a large flat where they had lots of room and I wanted them to stay there rather than that small place in Hollywood. They hated mum at first but gradually got to know her. They were more than cats, they looked me in the eye and they talke to me and they were my pals, not my pets, they were Orby and Triny and they were my pals. It won't be the same without Triny. Orby is here and he is affectionate and loving and funny but I miss my girl, she was my girl. It's almost 1pm and I need to get ready, get myself presentable to take my girl to the vet and say goodbye. I will be and am a wreck. I love you Triny and miss you Triny. I miss you bossing the other cats around .I remember you smacking Orby so hard in the face that he fell back. She was a ninja and would catch and chase any string or toy mouse put in front of her. Her eyes would go wild and she would go into pounce mode. I knew she had lost weight in March and I mentioned it to the vet, who told me to keep an eye on it. But I was looking after mum, who was also dying. And the fee for blood work was over £200, so she never got checked up until after I buried my mum and I stopped for one second to look at how skinny Triny had become and I took her to the vet. It cost my £250 and it was too late. I don't feel bad though because even if this was spotted in March, she would have had to eat this special food which she didn't like and she is a fussy cat, and I would probably have to force her. She was dying anyway and there was no coming back from it. I will get ready. xx

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I said goodbye to my girl Triny today

Today I said goodbye to my friend of 14 years. My beautiful Triny. She was born in Chicago with her brother. She took a plane with me to San Francisco. She drove with me down to Los Angeles, where the sun was brighter and the apartment was smaller. She took a plane to London before driving up to the north west. Here, she bossed everyone around and was by my side, always. Often, I preferred my cats company to humans. She and her brother were my family. She loved, she bossed the other cats around, she chirped like a bird, she licked my hair, she meowed whenever she saw me, she traveled the world with me but most of all, she thought of me as her mummy and she wanted to be with me and me only. She was my girl. I am heartbroken. The house is empty without her. Goodbye Triny. I love you and miss you. xxxx 15 October 2018.

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