First a Person, Then a Problem Photography, Pulse Reading, and the Practice of Being With
Yixi Tian Master of Fine Art & Design, St. Joost School of Art & Design, 2026 Thesis supervisors: Mariska van den Berg & Erik Hagoort
Abstract Over six years I have worked with concrete people: my roommate during her first year away from home, my mother and the Miao medicine practitioners she studied under in the mountains of Guizhou, the musicians and regulars of a Shanghai venue before and after its demolition. Each project began with a concrete person and stayed long enough for what matters to surface on its own. In the fieldwork in France on which this thesis is based, I returned over eight months to two women, Nadine and Anne-Marie, in Brioude. I photographed them and I read their pulses. Photography took me into their daily lives. Pulse reading, a diagnostic method from Chinese medicine, took me beneath the skin, into what has slowly settled in the body over a lifetime. This thesis asks what being with requires of the photographer, and what becomes visible when it is sustained over time.
Chapters 1. Touching and Looking 2. Before the Shutter 3. Staying Long Enough 4. The Problem Appeared in Its Own Shape