Hailun Ma

May 7, 2016
Hailun Ma is a New York Based photographer

How would  you describe your arts?

I think my works are intuitive but yet, scripted. I always have an image that I want to create in my mind, and I just follow that.  

Name couple of things make you happy?

Spicy food, horses riding, sunny day, taking pictures and chicken wing!!!

Why do you make art?

It’s just felt very natural to me, I have been always interested in arts, I grew up in a very art-friendly environment. When I was younger, my relative would asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up , as earliest as I remember my answer is always the same which is  I want to be an artist, funny thing is, I don't think I knew what is artist mean even. I just always have a desire that I want to share stories that I wrote with others, what is in my imagination, things I saw..etc.

What inspires you?

Culture, religions, history and everything I was fascinated when I was 6 and 7 years old.

Are you working on any new projects these days?

I am going to do a photo series about Kawaii culture, I want to explore and study how it mean to be  “Kawaii”,  how it affects the way women view themselves and the whole consumerism behind it.

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Can you tell us more about your series, Muslim Girls?

The title is called Muslim girls. I am from a city called Urumqi, Xinjiang, and it located in the northwest of China, and it is mainly dominated by Muslim culture. (I am not Muslim, but few my close friends are, and there is some political controversy happened in my city before, so government banned the Muslim women to wear Burqa in the public in my city ) I took the stereotype of how people think about Muslim women, the lavish life-style of middle-upper class women wear the Burqa costume. Some people think that wearing Burqa is oppress women’s right, or being considered as extremist, but my massage is really simple, is just let people be whoever they are and they want. I view Burqa just another kind of fashion, I want to by using the common stereotype to against the stereotype. Hopefully, make people think about more about the stereotype towards to Muslim community.

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Can you tell us about your use of colors?

Part of it is based on visual, I love colors, I think they are fun, bold and have good energies, we live in a colorful world, we see things are in color, each color can have different meanings, people can react differently toward each color which is very interesting to me and I do not purposely combined them, is more about  to play with them.

For more of Ma: hailunma.com