Liu Di digitally manipulates photographs introducing giant animals in an urban really where usually they don’t belong to.

Liu Di believes that “by violating the rules of common sense, we can break the hypnotic trance induced by familiar reality.” He does this manipulation to investigate the friction between the natural world and urban residents in China.

His series “Animal Regulation” (2010) features a suite of exaggeratedly large and cartoon-like wild animals, like the giant rabbit in Animal Regulation No. 7, sitting in the midst of destroyed landscapes of residential neighborhoods. He explains that these works look at a mutually destructive relationship through ruins of both human and animal living spaces. Liu first conceived of the project while navigating the crowded suburbs of Beijing, where he has been based since his graduation from the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

With subtle humour and science fiction-like stylizing, the artist manages to pay homage to traditional landscape photography and nature photography. His subjects “pose” in peculiar visions of a sci-fi-meets-magical-realism world where nothing and no one is entirely normal or healthy.