Closing smile ceremony 3
The theme of this issue is somehow getting less popular, which is “smile”. On one hand, a “smile” comes from a common scene in popular photography: a photographer would always ask the sitter to “smile” and capture that transient moment of staged happiness. On the other hand, when we come across perplexities and di culties, we are conditioned to tell ourselves: “Smile,” as if all the problems would be lifted after this simple facial expression. However, people tend to realize that a staged positivity isnʼt always a solution, it canʼt even numb ourselves anymore. Especially since each of us is in dire straits to varying degrees, thus smiling does not necessarily serve as an appeal to have some fun but carries an emotion with contradicting meanings, sometimes even uncanny and eerie. So the phenomena of smile now has a way more complicated significance.