My project "Something Is Missing" explores the feeling of incompleteness, drawing inspiration from French philosopher Jacques Lacan’s concept of lack.

Lacan suggests that from birth, something within us is missing, and we seek wholeness through relationships but still feel dissatisfied. This is because the other person also experiences their own lack. In love, this mutual absence becomes more apparent. The only way to feel whole, then, is to fantasize about someone who isn’t lacking.

To visualize Lacan’s theory, I situate people in intimate spaces where they can be vulnerable and where the sense of absence is tangible. Then I use a projector to cast images onto meaningful artifacts, such as a perfume bottle, a hair dryer, a book, and a suitcase. The projected images, both found and personally taken, feature elements that evoke imagination, specifically queer fantasy, such as images from ancient Greek sculptures, Caravaggio’s paintings, vintage gay magazines, and natural scenes historically associated with cruising. The projected fantasies fill the absence in the images while tracing the history of queer fantasy.

To display this series, I digitally project the photographs onto an empty storage box, which not only demonstrates the project’s technique but also embodies its philosophy: the box evokes absence, while the projection creates a fantasy. Through this installation, I open space to explore the issue of lack and ask whether imagination softens or intensifies our sense of it.

This question, one that probably can’t be resolved, reflects my own psychology as a young man in a stable relationship. I often find myself noticing the handsome men around me, even just while walking down the street, and sometimes feeling drawn to someone a bit older. Through this work, I’ve tried not only to intellectualize these darker impulses and channel them into art, but also to make peace with the deeper, darker side of humanity.