My Little Dead Dick

The My little Dead Dick photo diary lasted from the summer of 2006 to the summer of 2007 - exactly one year from the first day they met. Patrick Tsai and Madi Ju continued working and living together until their break-up which happened on the same day as the big earthquake in Western China in the summer of 2008.

Through my research on photographers that adopt a diaristic approach to their work, I read an article by Cecilie Oedegaard, who mentioned contemporary photographer Patrick Tsai. Tsai collaborated on a  body with work with another photographer, Madi Ju, whom he met online and fell in love with. The project, titled “My Little Dead Dick,” was uploaded as it was created, and according to Oedegaard, this project “very quickly got a captive audience following their bitter sweet love affair and the ups and downs that characterize any relationship.” (Oedegaard, 2017.)

The images in this series are relatable as the situations that are depicted are experiences that the broader majority have experienced. They are everyday moments, with a mix of the quirky thrown in for good measure. Palais de
Tokyo describes the images as “a fleeting collaboration of a rare intensity” and
suggests that the images “revisit, not without humour, the legacy of
Walker Evans or Nan Goldin.” 

Tsai, P 2006-07, My Little Dead Dick, photographic series, viewed 05 April 2020, <http://hellopatpat.com/galleries/mldd/start.html>