We talked with Adam Han-Chun Lin, who received the Outstanding Vision Grant, awarded to an artist whose work redefines creative boundaries and sets new artistic standards.
Adam Lin is a Taiwan-born photographer and visual artist based in London. His work explores intimacy, masculinity, queerness, heritage, and cross-cultural identity through portraiture, fashion, and documentary photography. He holds an MFA from Central Saint Martins, his work has been featured in WePresent, AnOther Magazine, and It s Nice That.
Lin’s project Sonder explores masculinity within the domestic space. Through an approach that combines documentary style with staged composition, Lin investigates how intimacy and vulnerability are experienced by men in the home—a place stereotypically associated with femininity. The home functions not only as a symbolic site for intimate matters, but also as an indefinite space that could exist anywhere in the world, reflecting the sense of estrangement many people feel when moving abroad, far from their country of origin. Sonder asks what it means to exist between femininity and masculinity, how our conceptions of these categories can be stretched and transformed, and what it means to live between two different cultural identities while discovering how we truly want to be in the world.
How did you first approach photography?
I trained in painting growing up, which I think developed my sensitivity to colour palette and composition. I got my first DSLR at 16 and was thrilled by how immediate photography felt compared to painting.
Working fluidly between portraiture, fine art, fashion, and documentary, I’ve always been drawn to using image-making to amplify and humanise deeply personal stories. Human connection is at the root of my work. My journey into photography stems from curiosity about others’ experiences and a desire to articulate emotions and feelings.
For me, the camera has a unique power in guiding me toward visualising complex, sometimes uncomfortable emotions that resist being pinned down by language. Photography excites me because it can hold contradictions, provoke questions, and communicate feelings too big or subtle for words.
I love theory-based research at the start of a project, but I’ve noticed that when I lean too heavily on theory or over-intellectualise, the images lose some of their emotional immediacy. It always comes back to asking: what can I only say through images, not through words, text, or any other medium? And the answer always lies in intuition and feeling. Respecting the medium often surprises me with the most rewarding outcomes. This project clarified both the kind of work I want to make and the trust I need to place in my own vision.
Which stereotypical masculine codes or aesthetics did you aim to subvert in your project?
Growing up surrounded by brothers, male cousins, and family figures, I became aware of the unique dynamics within male relationships. As the only queer kid, I was always conscious of the disparity between how the men in my family showed intimacy, contrasted with how I imagined masculinity could be and how I experienced it outside of my family. That difference often felt isolating, because while I had reflected and intellectualised these ideas, my family didn’t necessarily share the same experience or vocabulary to engage with them. Decades later, that feeling gave me the agency to create this project.
Societal expectations often constrain men from showing intimacy to other men, especially when boys enter our teenage years. This is largely due to an ingrained “homophobic gaze.” Growing up with many close female friends, I noticed girls didn’t have to navigate this in the same way. These pressures not only shape male friendships, but in familial relationships between fathers, sons, and brothers, and how men perceive vulnerability and emotional literacy.
Traditionally, the home is coded as a feminine space, with women as caretakers. Throughout history, we can easily picture what nurture looks like through women, but what about men? How is masculinity and intimacy between men expressed and negotiated behind closed doors? Masculinity is often associated with external, public arenas: workplaces, sports fields, and battlefields. By centering masculinity within domestic spaces, I wanted to challenge this binary and explore how men navigate these environments in ways we revealed together in front of the camera.
The male form has always been a constant theme in my work and has fascinated image-makers throughout history. But in an oversaturated visual culture, I want to go beyond simply showcasing the male body or queer eroticism. By layering in elements of family, domesticity, and cultural heritage, I hope to offer a more nuanced gaze, because masculinity is intersectional and deeply shaped by one’s social, economic, and cultural conditions.
Ultimately, Sonder aims to challenge narrow definitions of masculinity by presenting a spectrum of intimacy and tension, and by highlighting its fluidity. To redefine masculinity is to break down traditional associations with strength, aggression, and emotional detachment. Perhaps everything men do, feel, or become—whether tender or assertive—is inherently masculine as long as they identify as men.
What similarities and differences have you observed in the ways masculinity is understood in Taiwan and the UK?
My cross-cultural background played a significant role in situating the project across two cities that are worlds apart geographically and culturally. Moving from Taiwan to London at 18, I spent my formative years navigating two distinct environments while questioning my own relationship with masculinity, home, and family. London has become my second home, a place I hold close to my heart, but it has always been without family. Taichung, on the other hand, is where I grew up, yet after years abroad it sometimes feels distant and unfamiliar. Sonder became my way of exploring these contradictions: the in-between nature of belonging and identity that I’ve lived with for the past seven years.
I’ve never had family in London, so I was drawn to visiting family homes in London, spaces filled with history, heritage, and memory, unlike the transient rented apartments many international students like myself lived in. Photographing families in both cities allowed me to see connections I hadn’t anticipated. Initially, I thought of the London and Taiwan images as separate, but in editing, I noticed echoes between them: similar objects, gestures, and atmospheres that revealed intimacy and family as universal.
It’s easy to assume differences between cultures and similarities within them, but I found unexpected parallels. Some were visual, others emotional: the coexistence of distance, tension, and unspoken comfort. Even within the same family, masculinity is expressed differently by different members, so it’s almost impossible to pin down the exact differences between two cultures. Through globalization and immigration, cultural aesthetics have become increasingly fluid, you can easily find homes in London that feel somehow "Taiwanese" and vice versa. Because the project was shot entirely indoors, the lack of geographical markers further invites questions: Where was this taken? What elements reveal its cultural context?
This project also made me reflect on my role as photographer: speaking Mandarin in Taiwan or English in London shaped how I connected with my subjects. For me, Mandarin carries the rituals and manners of growing up in Taiwan, while English feels tied to the independence of moving to London at 18 without my family. But through making this project, I realized both languages, both versions of myself informed by East West, coexist within me. That realization broke down my own assumptions and clarified that what I was trying to express was the same thing regardless of where I am: the emotions, dynamics and togetherness between men that transcend languages and cultural differences.
Your project is deeply intimate, photographed inside private homes. How did you approach your subjects?
Although I naturally like to plan, this project required flexibility. Most families weren’t familiar with modelling, and since family homes are such private spaces, I often didn’t see their homes until the day of the shoot. My process began with spending time together, building trust, sharing stories, before discussing ideas, moving objects, adjusting interiors, and staging moments that echoed each family’s rituals or memories.
In Sonder, lighting was key to creating a muted yet cinematic atmosphere. I used studio lights in everyday interiors, aiming for a slightly surreal quality, something between reality and performance. I think this visual language echoes gender as performance and expression. We all put on different personas depending on context or company, whether consciously or not. Using continuous light, it felt like I was literally putting my subjects in the spotlight while prompting them to interact with their family members. Some embraced it naturally, others were more awkward, and I find both deeply human and fascinating.
My approach merges documentary with staged interventions. The project documents reality but also reimagines it. I’ve always been interested in the tension between the natural and the performed in daily life, and as a photographer, my presence and the camera inevitably turn private spaces into public ones, introducing an element of performance. Rather than resisting this, I embraced it. Searching for an absolute “truth” or capturing the “most honest/raw state of my subjects” was never the goal , but instead I wanted to explore the ways masculinity is performed, negotiated, and expressed within the home.
Intuition guided many of my decisions, often informed by clear references in my head from my own family history. Then it was about identifying gestures or arrangements that resonated with each family’s personality. Spontaneity became part of the process, and working with kids or younger participants often led to the most joyful, unexpected images.
What projects are you currently working on or planning for the future?
I’m developing my practice as a facilitator and educator, with a focus on socially engaged projects that give participants the agency to shape and respond to themes that matter to them. At the same time, I’m expanding my fashion editorial and commercial portfolio, carrying over the same visual language from my personal work to connect with wider audiences. I find it exciting that the boundaries between fashion imagery and art are increasingly blurred. Image-making has the power to reshape the rules. I want to keep sharpening my understanding of everyday fashion and how it might be translated in cross-cultural and local contexts, highlighting the intersection of culture, human connection, and heritage through my work.
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