At a young age, Xiaoxiao Xu (40) moved within China to another city with a new dialect. Seven years later she traveled her mother to the Netherlands, where she had to learn a new language. Xu struggled with it for a long time how to express herself but found a way in photography. In 2009 she graduated from the Photo Academy in Amsterdam, since then she has been working on her own projects.
Because of the move in China, XU had felt isolated and sought refuge in the world of Japanese manga. When she visited a cosplay convention for the first time in the Netherlands in 2022, she saw, in addition to figures from for example Star Wars and Breaking Bathcharacters from Japanese anime and manga. “I immediately had a bond with the visitors. I felt like a child in a candy store,” she says. For her new photo album This looks Better IRL: Exploring Cosplay Cons Visited Xu in two and a half years more than thirty cosplay meetings in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. She was enchanted, as she formulates it herself, by the sense of community and the creative attention for clothing, makeup and accessories that portray characters from films, comics and games in detail.
Photos Xiaoxiao Xu
Cosplayers regularly share the creation process of their outfit on social media, which they sometimes work on for months. In addition to its own photos, Xu also decided to include their Instagram screenshots in her book.
These cosplayers not only show their creations online, but also their uncertainties and vulnerabilities, she says. In the preface she writes: “A large part of the cosplay community is neurodivergent. […] They share their feelings on social media. ” For example, a cosplayer on Instagram says that the therapy for an anxiety disorder gives her a lot to prefer not to be spontaneously addressed at a convention, because that gives too many unexpected stimuli.
Photos Xiaoxiao Xu
Xu: “I think many people have difficulty expressing their feelings in language. With my photo series I want to show the individuality of cosplayers. They are often put away as childish. They embrace the freedom to be themselves.”
Not for everyone, Cosplay is a refuge, she says. “A large part just likes to tinker and be creative. To attract something beautiful and go to a convention.”
Photo Xiaoxiao Xu
Photo Xiaoxiao Xu