Rotation is an ongoing photographic series exploring how urban development reshapes our relationship with space—public, personal, and imagined. It invites viewers to reconsider orientation, perspective, and the fragility of boundaries between the built environment and the body.
Referencing the disorientation of outer space—where gravity dissolves the idea of ‘up’ and ‘down’—the series plays with visual perspective and suspension. Many images are shot through glass, integrating reflections that allude to invisible connections between people and places. This use of light and surface evokes a sense of weightlessness and fluid identity. Since 2021, Rotation has evolved through collaborations with over 20 organizations across cities such as London, Berlin, Stockholm, and Warsaw. With more than 70 works created so far, the project continues to map spatial perception through image-making—blurring lines between architecture, motion, and memory.
This project is supported by the Female Photography Foundation.
24 × 31 cm, 184 p, ills. color, paperback, screenprinted cover, magnifier included ISBN 9789083519951 edit & design: Jurgen Maelfeyt texts: Yue Li, Yingqin Zheng, Manhua Li, Cora Lingling Xu
edition of 750 November 2025
ColophonReleasedDec 1, 2025
CreditsAll images on this page are owned by the respective creator.
What did you love about this book?
Aug 23, 2026
As all the books by Qiu Yangzi this one again is an intellectual challenge in its own right. While the core sentiment behind the w...
As all the books by Qiu Yangzi this one again is an intellectual challenge in its own right. While the core sentiment behind the work may be the separation of lovers between time and places the book also challenges our way of perception. While turning city views 180 degrees has happened before, “Rotations” leads us to rethink how the perceptive eye in conjunction with our brain’s cells create a navigable idea of “reality?” for our consciousness in the first place. And these basic and everlasting philosophical questions is what makes the book so enticing. You either read about the theories in the treatises of the old or consider yourself a test object of these theories in the room the book provides for you. And in this light “Rotations” may contain a narrative but it’s firsthand a trial of your understanding of the world. And with challenges always comes enlightenment!