• Yanwen Dong and Yang Shen

  • Manli Travel Company 曼丽旅游公司

    Manli Travel Company 曼丽旅游公司
    Manli Travel Company is a fictional travel agency that provides virtual traveling services. We, the project team, observed the emerging trend of posting and sharing tourist photos from Chinese social media platforms and wondered how social media alters the purpose of travel today. It seems that in the age of social media, documentation of travel has come to supersede the experience of travel itself. This project presents a satirical depiction of our observation of the phenomenon originating from Chinese Internet culture, specifically people’s digital presentations on social media. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we invited people to “travel” by using the filters provided by our Instagram account @manlitravelcompany since they were unable to actually travel. Users were encouraged to document their travel experiences, taking selfies or videos on pretend picnics at different locations around the world, posing with backgrounds filled with common travel phrases, and validating their “travel experiences” through reposting. Instagram account: instagram.com/manlitravelcompany. Additional collaborators: Jing Xu (BFA Fashion Design ’21) Shuyang Ren (BFA Fine Arts ’20, School of the Art Institute of Chicago).

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