In May 2025, the annual NYCxDESIGN Festival once again drew international attention to New York City, a global hub for art, culture, and innovation. Among its standout exhibitions was Elements in Flux, a showcase that explored sustainability through the ancient Chinese philosophy of the Five Phases (Wu Xing)—Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. The exhibition aimed to reframe ecological issues through a cyclical, culturally grounded lens.

According to the exhibition’s curatorial team, the selection process was highly rigorous. Beyond artistic quality, it emphasized emotional resonance, cross-cultural depth, and conceptual clarity. Artist Wei-chen Lou was among the featured contributors. With a background in both film and photography, Lou’s work often explores the dynamic interplay among different mediums to create experiences that engage the viewer in real-time.

His contribution to the show included six photographs from his series Do You Want To Be Disturbed Too?, A body of work that not only matched but deepened the exhibition’s core theme. The six photographs each align with one of the Five Phases and reflect an elemental philosophy:

● First Light (Wood)
The image captures the early morning sun filtering through the forest, casting a soft glow that signals quiet renewal. It reflects a world slowly awakening, where growth unfolds gently within nature’s rhythm, embodying both vitality and structure.

● Good Evening, Zambezi & Morning Routine (Fire)
The images capture the transition between dusk and dawn, as deep hues settle over the water and sky. They portray a peaceful world where fire becomes memory and energy gives way to transformation.

Fire’s glow resting where day becomes night

● Grazing at Dusk (Earth)
The image captures animals quietly feeding as dusk settles over the landscape, grounding the scene in warmth and calm. It reflects a world rooted in its environment, where presence is steady and the Earth offers gentle sustenance.

● Under the Same Stars (Metal)

The image captures a starlit sky stretching over a lively campsite, where humans and nature share in the vastness of the universe. It reflects a world held together by stillness and endurance, reminding us that even in the face of our smallness, we carry the strength to shape a better future.

● Sunbathing (Water)
The image captures animals basking near water, their forms relaxed yet alert within a shimmering landscape. It reflects a world in constant motion, where stillness carries flow and water holds the rhythms of life.

Stillness and flow meet at water’s edge.

Photographed in Zimbabwe, these works center on moments of coexistence between wildlife, people, and natural landscape. Lou’s camera lingers on transitions between light and shadow, movement and pause. He seeks to reveal not just what is visible, but also the underlying tensions that shape each moment. Each of his works serves as a contemplative space, allowing nature’s subtle dynamics to emerge. Rather than directly illustrating the Five Phases, Lou’s work channels their essence through light, gesture, and composition. Speaking about the process of participating in the exhibition, Lou noted that the works were selected after days of revisiting his photographic archive, reflecting on the stories behind each image and how they resonated with the themes of the exhibition. “By focusing on the quiet presence of nature, I hope viewers begin to reflect on their own relationship with it,” he says. This philosophy runs through Lou’s broader practice.

Many of his other works are grounded in objective observation rather than guided framing, such as Yellow Jobs For Sale. Lou avoids manipulating perspective to push a message, instead letting viewers draw their own conclusions about how we relate to the world and what responsibilities we carry within it. His contribution to Elements in Flux extended beyond visual documentation. It became part of a larger conversation about balance, change, and our place within the natural order. In a time of ecological urgency and emotional fatigue, Lou’s photographs do not clamor for attention. They whisper, and keep reminding us that art can be both beautiful and powerful, intimate and grand, and that in contemplating nature, we might rediscover our own place within it.