Jumbo Tsui — Rewired, Reborn, and Ready for My Close-Up

BRYAN KONG — Your creative journey began in 2010, when you arrived in Paris. As someone who originally studied interaction design, did you ever imagine that your path would eventually lead you toward photography, visual art, and fashion? 

JUMBO TSUI — Not at all. When I first arrived in Paris, I did not have a clearly defined career plan. I was studying interaction design, focusing on the relationship between humans, technology, and space.

But Paris completely changed the way I perceived creativity. It made me realize that design is not only about solving problems; it can also be a form of expression, emotion, and cultural language. I became increasingly fascinated by fashion, art, photography, and different forms of visual storytelling.

Looking back, I do not think interaction design ever truly left my practice. It still influences the way I understand the relationship between people, images, spaces, and narratives. Photography simply became the medium through which I began exploring these questions.

BRYAN — Your transition from interaction designer to photographer was not a traditional career path. What made you realize that images, space, and visual narratives were the languages you truly wanted to explore?

JUMBO  — I have always believed that the most fascinating aspect of photography is its ability to create a space between reality and imagination.

Interaction design is about creating experiences, and photography allowed me to discover that even a single still image can create a powerful experience. It can transport someone into a world that does not physically exist.

Over time, I realized that what truly interested me was not a specific tool or medium, but the ability to create a complete sensory experience. Photography was simply the first door I opened.

BRYAN — Before COVID-19, you were primarily known as a photographer, moving between cities such as Paris, Tokyo, and Los Angeles. How did living between different cultures influence your visual language?

JUMBO — Living between different cultures made it difficult for me to define myself through a single place.

Paris gave me a foundation in art history and fashion culture. Japan taught me the importance of details, craftsmanship, and the devotion to imaginary worlds. Los Angeles showed me how images and popular culture can create contemporary mythology.

All these experiences eventually became part of my work. I have always been fascinated by creating connections between different worlds, placing history and the future, reality and fantasy, commerce and art, within the same visual universe.

BRYAN — COVID-19 changed the trajectory of many people’s lives, and it also became an important turning point for you. When the world suddenly came to a halt, how did you face this unprecedented period of uncertainty? And what inspired you to explore creative territories beyond photography?

JUMBO — When the pandemic first began, I simply returned to my hometown, waiting for the world to return to normal. I never imagined that this pause would last for such a long time.

As time passed, I began searching for new ways to create. I started my own lifestyle brand because I discovered that products themselves could become a powerful creative medium. Unlike an image that exists only to be viewed, an object can enter someone’s daily life. Through products, I could embed personal signals, emotions, and references, and when people received those signals and responded to them in their own way, I found an incredible sense of fulfillment.

At the same time, in order to fight against the monotony of isolation, I stepped beyond photography and entered new territories. I founded my own brand and also became Creative Director at Vogue China. This experience pushed me beyond the personal creative world I had built for myself over many years.

As someone who had spent a long time observing and creating independently, I began to understand the complexity of real society, human relationships, and the way people actually live.

Photography taught me how to observe a single moment, while my experiences as a creative director and curator taught me how to create a larger context around that moment.

BRYAN — From photographer to creative director and curator, you gradually moved from creating individual images to constructing entire worlds. How does a visual universe begin to take shape for you?

JUMBO — Usually, it does not begin with a clear answer.

It begins with a feeling. It could come from a piece of music, a material, a garment, a historical reference, or even an image that appears without explanation. I enjoy allowing different elements to collide and create unexpected connections.

For me, visual creation is not simply about making something beautiful. It is about creating a space that people want to enter. Whether it is a photograph, an exhibition, or a brand project, I hope the audience can feel an emotion and find their own imagination within it.

BRYAN — As a creator working across photography, fashion, design, and cultural projects, how do you understand the relationship between different mediums? Is photography still your core language, or is it simply one way of expressing your vision?

JUMBO — I think photography is my mother tongue, but it is not my only language.

It is the medium I know most intimately, and it remains one of the most important ways through which I understand the world. But over time, I realized that I was no longer satisfied with creating only individual images.

What I want to create is a complete visual experience. Photography, fashion, exhibitions, and design are not separate disciplines to me. They are different forms of storytelling.

BRYAN — You once described 2024 as a year of self-reflection. After an accident forced you to step away from your work for six months, how did this period change the way you understood your body, your time, and your creative direction?

JUMBO — It was an extremely unique period of my life.

Before that, my life had always been moving at a very high speed. I was constantly traveling between cities, starting new projects, and entering different creative environments.

In 2023, on a rainy night, I was riding a scooter at full speed when I accidentally fell into a hole on the road. The scooter crashed, and I fractured the main bone of my left arm. After that, I spent six months recovering in the hospital and slowly returned to normal life.

The process of healing allowed me to reconnect with my own body. It also forced me to ask myself what I truly wanted to achieve within this limited lifetime.

So in 2024, I not only reconnected my arm, but also reconnected my consciousness. I decided to face my own perspectives more honestly, rather than creating a certain kind of beauty simply because it could be accepted or sold.

BRYAN — Did the recovery of your body also become a process of reconstruction in your creative practice? In a way, did this experience reopen your relationship with expression and image-making?

JUMBO — Absolutely. That period gave birth to a completely different desire for expression.

For many years, I had been creating within certain frameworks, responding to clients, brands, publications, and external expectations. But when everything was forced to slow down, I began reconnecting with the most instinctive part of myself as a creator.

It felt like what we describe in Chinese as “rain after a long drought.” After being emotionally dry for a long time, suddenly having the freedom to express again felt incredibly powerful.

I began creating from a much more instinctive place and reopened my relationship with different mediums. Photography remained an important language, but I also started creating installations with my own hands, exploring materials, spaces, and forms beyond the image itself.

Perhaps especially for an East Asian creator, emotional expression often comes with a certain restraint. When that desire for expression finally begins to overflow, it feels as if years of suppressed emotions are suddenly released all at once.

This experience gave me a new sense of freedom. Creation is no longer only about communicating something or fulfilling an expectation. Sometimes, it simply comes from the need for something inside you to exist.

BRYAN — Looking back at the past fifteen years, from the young designer who arrived in Paris searching for new possibilities, to the photographer, creative director, curator, and visual creator you are today, what do you think has been your greatest transformation? And what has remained unchanged?

JUMBO — I think the biggest transformation is that I no longer feel the need to define myself.

When I was younger, I always felt that I needed to find a clear identity. I wanted to know whether I was a designer, a photographer, or an artist. But after experiencing so many different stages of life, I gradually realized that a creator is never a fixed identity. It is something that continues to evolve.

I used to believe that growth meant finding a final answer. Now I believe it is about maintaining the ability to keep exploring. Every change of identity, every unexpected turn, and every experience along the way eventually becomes part of the creative process.

The one thing that has never changed is curiosity.

Whether it was my first arrival in Paris, my journey into photography, my experiences in fashion and curation, or my exploration of new artistic forms, I have always remained curious about the world. I love collecting, researching, learning, and finding unexpected connections between different cultures and mediums.

Perhaps the thing that has always remained the same is the person who wants to understand the world, and then reinterpret it through his own language

BRYAN — If life is an artwork that is still being created, where will the next chapter unfold? Where is your next destination?

JUMBO — Perhaps Berlin. Perhaps London. Perhaps South America.

I have always believed that a creator’s journey should not be limited to a single place. Over the past fifteen years, I have moved between Paris, Tokyo, and Los Angeles, and each city has given me a different perspective, shaping the way I see and understand the world today.

Berlin represents freedom, experimentation, and alternative forms of expression. London represents a new cultural collision and an evolving artistic landscape. South America feels like an unexplored continent, a place filled with unknown stories waiting to be discovered.

But perhaps the next destination is not only a geographical place. It is also a new state of creation. I want to carry everything I have experienced, everything I have learned, and everything that has transformed me into the next chapter of my work.

So if you ask me where my next destination is, perhaps my answer would be:

Anywhere that allows me to see the world differently.