From September 19th to 23rd, the 25th Pingyao International Photography Festival was held in the ancient city of Pingyao. Li Jia, a 2022 undergraduate student from the School of Performing Arts at BCU, won the "Academy Outstanding Work Award" at the 25th Pingyao International Photography Festival with her work "Ideal Persona."

" Ideal Persona " collects hundreds of social media selfies of young Chinese women and uses artificial intelligence to generate an "average face," revealing how algorithmic aesthetics shape convergent visual norms. This generated face is then replaced into portraits of women in everyday scenes, where the bodies are real but the faces are homogeneous, creating a paradox of "presence" and "disappearance," critiquing the depersonalization caused by the recursion of social media aesthetics.

The 25th Pingyao International Photography Festival adhered to the principles of professionalism, diversity, and internationalization, attracting over 5,000 photographers from 34 countries and 117 institutions. The "Academy Outstanding Work Award" is limited to only 10 recipients each edition. This award marks a significant breakthrough for BCU students on this high-level professional platform. This achievement is closely related to the teaching practice transformation towards future imaging technologies carried out by the Film and Television Photography and Production Department.

For this exhibition, School of Performing Arts exhibition area adopted the theme "Iterative Experiments of Meta-Images," curated by Nie Xiaohan, Director of the Future Imaging Center and the Film and Television Photography and Production Department. It featured works by four students: 2022 undergraduate students Li Jia, Wang Yuchen, Wang Dian, and 2023 undergraduate student Yuan Junjie. This exhibition is not only a concentrated presentation of professional teaching outcomes but also fully reflects the active exploration and innovative vitality of faculty and students in the forefront of the imaging field.