River Zhi-Hui Zhang · Documentary, Film & Feminism Podcaster · New York University

One of my greatest hobbies is hiking. Due to the covid and my transferring experience, I lived in four cities during my university studies (Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and New York). Though they are big cities, even metropolitans, I have discovered mountains and natural scenes in each city driven by my love of nature. The essential charms and uniqueness from nature add a sense of continuity in my separated university life. The most unforgettable mountain I've been to three times is Sunset Peak in Hong Kong. My hiking partner and I will spend five hours reaching the top to set up a tent, waiting for the sun to rise the next day. The variability and uncertainty of nature itself are infinitely magnified on mountains. We were exposed, without the protection of reinforced concrete, becoming extremely insignificant but authentic. I hope that all the natural world can keep its original appearance, but it's impossible since the human world will develop. However, the harmonious balance between well-developed civilization and well-protected nature in Hong Kong makes me believe that humans can reach a balance point with the natural world. Though China did a lousy job protecting the natural world in cities, I wish people could raise environmental awareness and responsibility to protect what we have right now, the mountains with colorful forests in autumn that I can find in Western Beijing.

For me, the most important things are the creator's personal physical and emotional engagement about the project/story and empathy that can be delivered to the audience. That's also what I am trying to approach during my creativity and study, to connect to the world, connect to my subjects, to my stories, and to myself. With The Creative Process, I am learning how to become a good storyteller via various media. This is a platform that gathers artists and storytellers that I want to learn from. I have many reflections and willingness to deliver in-depth stories from around the world. There are so many stories happening every day in every corner of the world, but we don't see them or have the courage to approach them. The Creative Process inspires me and helps me push myself to start exploring and developing daily but extraordinary stories.

Currently, I am working on a short documentary project called Ladies on the Barge. Though the barge runners are males' jobs based on common sense, females play an essential role on the barge but are always neglected. While I was researching social media (e.g. Tick Tock), I found that female barge runners are posting short videos about their lives, and some of them achieve a great number of followers. During my field trip to Huainan, a small village that lived on the Huai canal in China, I encountered five women barge runners of different ages (from the 20s to 80s), some own a big ship, some rents a small ship, and some is losing her ship where she lived for three generations due to government policy. I documented my interactions with them and their lives during the field trip, and right now, I'm in the postproduction process. Another project I'm doing is an anthropology project about the gender hierarchy in the public chess corner in Washington Square Park in New York. There are a dozen chess tables, and every day some males will sit there, calling passersby to play chess with them. I spent every Thursday morning with the chess hustlers in the corner for three months and observed their interaction with me (an Asian female). It turns out thaat there are gender and race selection phenomena in the chess corner, and the power dynamics are determined by both the hustlers and the pedestrians (who plays the passive role and who plays the active part). The project is supervised by Prof. Anna Wilking at NYU. In terms of my plans for the future, I have a traveling plan to Europe this winter, and a study plan to Africa next summer.