This article explores visual and ethnic representation among Nuosu Yi youth in contemporary China, where photographic subjects’ desires and agency compete with mainstream visual regimes. I argue that Nuosu Yi university students used self‐fashioning and photography to create a new yet radically retro narrative—one that asserts their political and cultural modernity in the Chinese national imagination. “Art photo” studios have recently inspired youth to express themselves through a markedly retro Nuosu aesthetic. In this project, I replicated an art photo studio and photographed fourteen individuals, revealing their individual desires and agency in the broader context of Chinese ethnic representation.

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