Kangyue Zhang
Visual Artist
Photography
London based


Kangyue Zhang, a Chinese artist born in Japan, earned her BA in Visual Communication Design from NCUT in Beijing in 2022. She then moved to England and completed an MFA in Photography at the University for the Creative Arts in 2024.

Kangyue is influenced by Japanese aesthetics
‘ Mono-aware’ and ‘ Wabi Sabi’, she unconsciously captures the vulnerability of beauty in objects, using sound, sketch, image and text to present her perception of the material and immaterial. The lapse of time has obliterated the memories which lie hidden in the mind, but objects or places which have not changed in the course of time are invariably recalled with intense emotion.

The artworks "Another Goodbye" and “The Negative Space of Photo” become ways to respond to emotions and reflect on modern urban life as a form of recollection.












To readers:

Every object is a vessel of memory—fragments, connections, ruptures, and reconstructions. Time is not linear but a layering of intersecting moments. To flip through, to touch, to gaze, to forget. My photography is an archive of time, a way of awakening. Memories do not vanish; they hide within the folds and the play of light and shadow.
Tutors/Contributors

Anna Fox
Emmanuelle Waeckerlé

Thanks for all MFA Photography students from UCA during 2022-2024.

Contact / Social Links

Instagram: @zhangkangyue_
Email: kouka0604@outlook.com
WeChat: zhangkangyue_tsukina
Research Journal
→ Updates in progress


Letter 2March 15th, 2023 


This zine serves as an intimate exploration of grief, memory, and materiality through a deeply personal lens. Inspired by the Japanese aesthetic of “mono no aware”, it embraces the beauty and impermanence of loss, weaving together visual language and personal memento archives to construct a fragmented yet poetic narrative of remembrance.

Through imagery drawn from nature—waves, raindrops, sunlight, and ice—each page captures the ephemeral and fragile emotions of mourning: the serenity of acceptance, the brokenness of sorrow, and the vulnerability of longing. The interplay of archival materials, such as my mother’s letters, vintage photographs, and handwritten inscriptions, becomes a form of storytelling that blurs past and present, holding space for the traces of the lost. 

The visual and textual elements in this work do not seek resolution but rather embody the complexities of grief as an evolving dialogue between presence and absence. By documenting these deeply personal yet universal emotions, this zine invites reflection on how memories persist through material objects and fleeting moments—remnants of love that refuse to fade.


Copyright © Zhang Kangyue. All rights reserved.